


autostunted

by fuckener



Category: South Park
Genre: F/M, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-02
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-02-03 02:48:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1728308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuckener/pseuds/fuckener
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stan copes with change by repressing everything. As well as being a terrible idea, this could potentially ruin: 1. his friendship with Kyle, and 2. the rest of his stupid life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	autostunted

**au·to·** **stunt·ed**  [aw-toh-stuhnt-ed]

**_adjective_**

**1.** a word Stan just came up with.

**2.** to have impeded your own personal growth.

**3.** to have tried, in a spectacular fashion, to wreck your future with something important to you:  _Stan’s asshole would perhaps never recover from how hard he had autostunted himself earlier that year._

_*_

 

"So, what," Craig says, as nasal and monotone as ever, "you're just gonna lie there all day?”

Kyle is so sick it manages to make him look even more pissed off. He throws a balled up tissue at Craig's face, weakly, then slides further down the couch and pulls his old threadbare Chinpokemon sheet over his head.

"I'm cancelling our plans, dick," he says, thickly. "They're cancelled. Kindly kiss my ass and then get out."  
  
Craig pulls something out of his pocket and then drops it where Kyle's face appears to be poking out under the sheet. It's a box of painkillers.  
  
"If those are the drowsy ones, I swear to god," he warns, muffled.  
  
"They are. You'll deal."  
  
Kyle yanks the sheet back down and sucker punches Craig in the thigh, which has barely any effect because of the state he's in. Lucky, too - Kyle can still take down Cartman with his right hook, all 210 pounds of him.  
  
"Dick! I specifically fucking said not the drowsy kind! I have shit to do today, Craig."  
  
Craig gives him a bored look, hands in his pockets and back slouched. His response is, predictably, to give Kyle the finger. "No, you don't. You look dead, you sound dead - today you're basically dead. So pop a pill and sleep it off. Screw your essay for another 24 hours, who gives a fuck. Why don't you let your babysitter do the work."  
  
"I'm not his babysitter," Stan cuts in.  
  
Craig flips him off, which is how Craig has acknowledged his existence since the 8th grade.  
  
"Fuck you," Kyle says vehemently, jabbing an aggressive finger up at him.  
  
"No, fuck you.”

They stare each other for a minute, Kyle’s nostrils flaring the way they do when he’s irritated but has no real direction for it - although the effect is sort of lost when he can hardly breathe out of them. A muscle in his jaw spasms, then he opens the box, takes two pills out and swallows them dry.

He winces at the taste and then flops back on the couch, defeated. “Goddamnit. I’m always sick.”

Craig says, supportively, “Yeah, you’re pretty repulsive, alright.”  
  
He leans down and gives Kyle's frown a quick kiss. Stan pretends not to be fascinated by this the way he would be hearing about an incredibly fucked up murder and watches them through their half-visible reflection in the TV. When he glances at his own face, it looks pretty grossed out. Makes sense.  
  
"I, uh," Kyle says, hesitantly, which means he doesn't want Stan to hear, which means, courtesy be damned, Stan needs to know the next words out his mouth: he needs to know all the grotesque details, all about this weird shit. It’s like reading the Manson family’s Wikipedia page if they'd messed around with one of the people he cares about more than anything.

Kyle clears his throat, awkwardly. "Sorry. About - tonight, and whatever."  
  
"Don't be a dumbass," Craig advises, which could be one of the nicest things he’s ever said. There's a clicking sound. They're kissing again, and Stan is steadfastly not looking at them; not _directly_ , anyway. "Don't die or anything. See you."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Craig straightens again, as much as he ever does, and gives Stan what might be his idea of a smile but instead looks like mild disdain. Stan stares at Gordon Ramsay's crumpled face on the TV while he leaves and wonders if 'fuck you' is a kind of polite 21st century dating code for 'I love you' when you're also in the company of other people.  
  
"Dude, you can go too, you know," Kyle tells him, then he makes a gross, phlegmy sniffing sound that’s pathetic enough for Stan to completely disregard _that_ suggestion. "It's Saturday. I'm just going to be lying here, complaining all day about that paper and my clogged up fucking head in between naps. Also, I'm disgusting."  
  
Admittedly, Kyle is pretty disgusting right now. He's got a sheen of sickness sweat, red eyes and a runny nose, and some of his curls are damp and stuck to his forehead. He's in an old, worn WWE shirt that's too big on him still. Stan knows if he left Kyle would just curl up and watch about twenty episodes of total crap, scour Google for any indication that the flu is going to kill him, and generally be miserable until his parents got home.

It’s been about a week and a half and he’s still looking no better than the morning Stan knocked his door, expecting to walk with him to school, and was met instead by a Kyle that was more blanket and than person, but these things tend to have the ability to knock him on his ass longer than most other people.

"It's cool," Stan says. He probably should be at home working on his history essay, too; but spending the entire school week without Kyle kind of sucked a lot. He'll end up pulling a groggy all nighter tomorrow, the day before it's due in, and just barely scraping a C. That's fine, though. Pretty much in keeping with his average.  
  
The floor is starting to hurt his ass - Kyle's mom had the whole downstairs carpet ripped out for this expensive hardwood flooring that that looks nice but has been known to numb buttcheeks during lengthy nights of Xbox. He moves to sit by Kyle's feet on the couch, which he thought might have been kind of weird to do in front of Craig, especially since instead of lifting them up, Kyle just drops them back on Stan's lap, his mom's ugly slippers and all. For a woman pushing 5’4” at best, Kyle’s mom has pretty giant feet, which were unsurprisingly passed on to her giant 6’3” son.  
  
Kyle makes a sound between a sigh and a grumble, half-relieved by the painkiller and half-frustrated at his own body's betrayal. "Thanks, man. Any time you want to bail, though, go ahead."  
  
"I know." Stan flicks the fluffy ball on top of his left foot. "Are you too out of it for video games?"  
  
Kyle blows his nose into the thousandth Kleenex of the day. "Probably,” he admits. His voice sounds stuffed up and rough, and Stan thinks they have about twenty minutes or so before the pills knock him out. “Let's just Netflix something shitty."  
  
"Sure, dude."

He puts on some stupid Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary that guarantees to be a brainless but enjoyable watch. Kyle says that all of his movies are crap except Batman and Robin, which he only saw once as a kid and refuses to re-watch now he’s old enough to understand how badly it sucks, and Stan says he liked the _Terminator_ movies and that Predator is a classic, and wonders in the back of his head how many times they’ve had the exact same conversation, how many conversations they repeat on a semi-regular basis and if that kind of thing should be annoying by now.

After a few moments of silence, Stan looks over to the other side of the couch to check if Kyle’s still awake and finds him scrubbing at his nose with another tissue, looking partly interested in the movie and partly like he wishes he were dead. He looks so pathetic when he’s sick that Stan has to constantly beat down to urge to channel his mom and start, like - _coddling_ him. He’s lost weight again, which he normally does when he’s sick, and that wouldn’t be such a shitty thing if it didn’t happen so often or if he was better at gaining it back afterwards.

But Kyle hears all that from his mom, anyway, and he’d think it was weird if Stan started badgering him about it, too. It probably would be. Stan just wants to like, bake a big fattening chocolate cake and watch Kyle eat it down to the last crumb, but that - if his life goes according to plan, he will never say _anything_ about that.

Fuck. He switches gears and thinks of something else, but there’s one thing that’s stuck in his head lately when they’re together lately.

So, because he still sincerely has no idea, he clears his throat and asks, tentatively, “Uh - how’s it going with Craig?”

He tries to gauge a shift in expression, but Kyle just keeps abusing his red nose with that tissue, even though Stan knows his mom will give him hell for it when his family gets home and the skin by his nostrils is dry and flakey. Stan has Vaseline in his bedside drawer, he remembers, abruptly, but what the fuck will saying that out loud do besides spread the knowledge that Stan’s rubbed it on his dick before and make everything briefly, horribly uncomfortable?

Thankfully unaware of any of this, Kyle sniffs weakly. “Okay, I guess,” he manages.

That's as enlightening an answer as it has been for the past two months Stan’s been asking the question. The whole thing’s become downright fucking _baffling_.

“Man, you don’t tell me anything about what’s going on there,” Stan says, but he keeps his tone casual because he doesn’t want to make this conversation any weirder than it has to be, not when Cartman is acting like every day Kyle has a boyfriend is his own personal Christmas, and he’s being gifted all the ammo he could ever want to verbally assault him with. Not when everything else threatening to burst out of his mouth is suggesting Kyle rub his dick-jelly around his nose or lick plates of his baked goods while he watches.

Stan picks at the thread on the side of his jeans, swallowing, and thinks of any viable safe bet for actually progressing this months old and so far dead-end discussion between them. “I told you, like - _everything_ that happened with Wendy.”

He and Wendy have been on and off since high-school, currently being off, and he admits they probably were never all that interesting to hear about, but Kyle still cared and interrogated him with questions when shit between them didn’t seem right. Stan just wants him to know it’s the same deal for him, but the trouble is, he has no idea what Kyle and Craig are like when they’re being ‘right’ or when a third-party _should_ intervene with possibly awkward interruptions like, “Learn how to smile and never, ever hurt my best friend,” or, “Do you even know _how_ to make chocolate cake?”

“Dude, I don’t know,” Kyle says, sounding slightly awkward. He drops a limp hand on his shiny forehead. “It’s fucking Craig, man, my life isn’t suddenly a goddamn Jane Austen novel.”

Stan relents a little, says, “Yeah, okay,” and then, simply: “But you like him?”

There’s a pause. He looks over to Kyle, who’s staring thoughtfully up at the ceiling instead of at the TV. When he catches Stan’s eye his expression is strange and indifferent and unlike Kyle at all.

“Yeah, I do,” is all he says, shrugging, and then he gives Stan a strange look he has to turn away from.

It’s - good, he thinks. It’s what he should want. Better to find out it’s actually going _well_ than to find out Kyle’s secretly been suffering that same kind of high school dating scene depression Stan got every time something roped him into a date with Wendy. That he’ll get again, maybe. Probably.

“And you guys have a good time together?” he presses. The words just kind of jump out of his mouth before his brain even registers them being in there, but at least they’re relatively better than the alternatives.

Kyle’s lips press together tightly. He’s still giving Stan a weird look, like this isn’t him just being as caring a friend as ever (which Stan doesn’t feel is necessarily what’s going on either, but why would Kyle think that?).

“Yeah,” Kyle says with a stiff, short-lived smile at one corner of his mouth, “we... have fun.”

At this, Stan’s mind becomes occupied by just what exactly their fun may entail, so much so that the conversation dies out afterwards and Kyle quickly falls asleep.

He wouldn’t mean like - sex stuff. Kyle’s relationship with sex is pretty damaged and he’s loathe to discuss anything sexual, which Stan figures is the fucked up product of having Cartman barrage you with images of hardcore anal fisting on a daily basis after coming out of the closet. Stan wouldn’t interrogate him about that, either, and not just because Kyle would hate him for it a little. (Sometimes, he kind of worries he’s a little homophobic for being unsettled by the idea of the two of them - _whatevering_ ; but it’s probably normal not to want to think about your best friend screwing around with anyone, let alone Craig Dead-Eyes Tucker. It’s not like he ever shared details with Kyle about the four times he tried to have sex.)

Why is Stan even thinking about it, anyway? It’s a good thing that they’re having a good time. That’s what he wants. If Kyle’s having fun, then Stan’s glad, because a best friend should be.

Maybe Kyle just means _‘fun’_ like the kind of fun they have together as friends.

Maybe they play glitchy old video games for hours on end until their asses get numb from the hardwood, too, and laugh at incredibly bad movies together and listen to the same chilled playlist Kyle made on Spotify when they smoke weed together in Craig’s bedroom (it’s called _bowlero_ , which Stan had come up with and Kyle had found pretty genius). Maybe it’s just what _Stan_ and Kyle have, but afterwards, they fool around. Maybe they’re one of those couples who play video games in each other’s laps and miss important plot points in favour of light frenching and get high pre-coitus.

It could be like everything he has with Stan, only - _better_ , sort of.

Maybe he should have just gone home.

He could, now; but instead he stares blankly at the television until the credits run and leans across the couch to feel Kyle’s forehead every so often with a frown. He watches three episodes of _Dance Moms_ literally just so Kyle will have no understanding of how they got into the Recently Watched section next time he’s on.

He thinks about football practice and how inevitable it is that he'll procrastinate on that essay until the last possible moment he can, thinks about how skinny Kyle is and ways he can goad him into a lot of filthy, awesome fast food when he gets better if he puts his mind to it. He thinks about how Kyle’s dating someone now, but it’s still Stan keeping an eye on him when he’s sick and alone.

Halfway through the third episode, Kyle is still out cold, and his parents are back with Ike and two or so dozen shopping bags. Kyle’s mom is surprised to find him here and proceeds to act like he’s a modern day saint for coming over to watch spectacularly shitty TV and eat all of their Doritos supply next to her comatose son.

“He’s lucky to have a friend like you,” she tells him, picking up all the tissues Kyle’s left on the floor, which have almost formed a decent sized rug at this point, honestly.

Stan grabs the last few for her, and when he gets up off the floor, Ike is standing there, halfway through a sip of Dr Pepper and giving him a weird look over the can, like holding a few hundred of Kyle’s snot-wet Kleenex sheets is something he shouldn’t be okay with doing of his own volition. Kyle mumbles nonsense in his sleep, and Stan moves past his brother before dumping his tissues in the trash and then tells Kyle’s parents that he should be heading home.

“You’re welcome to stay for dinner,” Gerald suggests.

From the couch, Kyle mumbles more, and Stan thinks he can make out a name in the incoherency.

“My mom’s already made something,” he says, quickly, although he doesn’t know if it’s true. "Thanks."

“Okay then, Stanley,” Sheila says, “You have a good night.”

She hugs him goodbye, which is still as awkward as it was when he was a kid, and Kyle’s dad gives him a wave from the kitchen. Ike is sitting on top of Kyle’s feet, giving Stan the same discomfitting look as before.

It’s cold when he heads out. He ends up having to pick up something from City Wok because his mom sends him a texts saying she assumed he would be getting dinner on his own, and when he gets home he feels like it’s not just their questionable beef curry that’s making him feel so nauseous.

Kyle texts him an hour or so later. It says: _sorry man, those painkillers knock me out. also, thank you for hooking my netflix account to my facebook so everyone can know how much i love dance moms, you big fuck._

Stan snorts reading it and then lets it sit there for a while, absently wondering if he should make a start on his essay tonight or not. He spins around in his desk chair, which, as it turns out, does nothing for his already queasy stomach, and then after a few more moments’ hesitation, he sends back, _craigs bad not yours + youre welcome now you dont need to keep living in denial about your huuuuuuuuuge dick for dance moms_

_haha, fuck you_ _dude_ , Kyle replies after a minute, and after that, _and thanks for making sure i didn’t like, die in my sleep today._

Stan looks at it for a while. He says, _its cool but please stop being such a sick loser now._ Kyle just sends back a picture of a newly formed mountain of Kleenex. Stan stops pretending to himself that he’s going to make any headway on that essay and turns in for the night, still feeling a bit off. His phone doesn’t buzz again from the floor by his bed. He wonders what the messages Kyle sends to Craig look like, but that’s a stupid thing to wonder, so instead he just tries his best to go to sleep.

-

By Monday morning, Stan has a mostly completed but ultimately pretty crappy paper on the revolutionary war in his bag and about three cans of Red Bull coursing through his system to keep him from falling on his ass at the bus stop.

“ _Dude_ ,” Kyle says, concerned.

There’s no apparent signs of illness left in _him_ , finally, but Stan, who feels like he’s got bags stretching down to his jaw and two lazy eyes, has had decidedly better days. He feels like shit.

“I feel like shit,” he says.

“You _look_ like shit.”

He never remembers why he thinks working on things as late as he possibly can is a good idea in hindsight. He’s always comforted by the solidarity of both he and Kyle not starting their homework until a day or two before it’s due, and he conveniently seems to forget about the inevitable difference in quality between the two finished products. That can be blamed on the fact Kyle actually _likes_ school and listens in classes, while in history this year Stan has been focused on his series of shitty looking doodles more than anything else, with his second highest priority being how quickly he can draw a dick on the back of Kyle’s hand before he realises and yanks it away.

On the bus he gets a few minutes of broken sleep as it bumps them to school, accidentally leaving a tiny drool mark on Kyle’s shoulder that makes Kyle snicker, “Gross, dude,” and would make Stan laugh at if he were slightly more alive. He stumbles off the bus knowing the day is basically guaranteed to only suck further dicks.

He’s cramming his books inside his locker unhappily when Cartman’s voice greets him from behind with, “Shit, Stan. Did Kyle give you the AIDs?”

Stan is too tired to put all his irritation at that into an eloquent string of words, so instead he just says, “Fuck you,” even though it’s pretty ineffective this point. Cartman hears those words as often as normal people hear ‘hello’.

“Well, excuse me for being worried about the wellbeing of a friend,” Cartman says, mock indignant and maximum bullshitty. “I’m just looking out for you, Stan.” He places a meaty hand on Stan’s arm. “I only have your best interests at heart.”

For some reason, Stan has trouble believing that. He grumbles in response.

“It must be hard for you, drifting apart from your best friend like this, heinous Jewmosexual or not,” Cartman tells him, kindly. “I’m here for you, like a smarter, handsomer, puss-loving replacement.”

Stan puts his face in his hands and wants to die. “Oh my god. Cartman. _Shut up_.”

Thankfully, at this moment Clyde walks by, and Cartman becomes more interested in bothering someone who sometimes actually listens to his crap.

In first period Stan hands in his essay, sits holding his head up in his palm while the teacher discusses - _something,_ and falls steadily in and out of consciousness. Kyle said he can copy his notes later, which means he has more faith in Stan’s commitment to his education than Stan does, really; but he decides he really will read through them later when he glances at Kyle’s page and sees there are little notes there obviously aimed at him ( _NO idea what the last word was, so ‘somethingity’ will have to do. This powerpoint is too fast. Nobody can be expected to write this fast. I’m missing other things now. SHUT UP STAN!!_ ) _._

They are _not_ drifting apart, Stan thinks when his eyes drift shut again, only really half aware of what’s going on in his head. They still hang out all the time. Maybe Kyle’s busy on the Fridays and Saturdays he _is_ well enough to be in the company of people who aren’t Stan, but that’s nothing. Stan used to be like that with Wendy, and Kyle would hang out with Kenny instead and not be weird about it. And Stan isn’t weird about this, either. But it's nice to think that in a month or two, when their whole thing has ran its course, Kyle will be done with Craig, and Stan will have Fridays and Saturdays again.

He can’t keep trying to blink himself awake at this point, and his thought process becomes less sensical as he falls into sweet almost-sleep.

Someone nudges his shoulder and he jolts out of it again. Kyle is smiling at him sympathetically and packing his books back into his bag, so Stan guesses class is over and follows him out the door.

He stops outside to lean forehead first on a set of lockers outside and feels like a breathing piece of shit.

“I’m not gonna make it,” he groans.

Kyle pats his back and tells him, comfortingly, “You fucked up.”

“I fucked up so bad, Kyle.”

A bleary look at the other side of the hallway tells him Craig is coming over to walk Kyle to physics, one of subjects Stan doesn’t have with him this year.

Craig greets Kyle with a, “Hey,” and Stan with an even weirder look than usual before turning back to the only reason he regularly has look at Stan at all, an eyebrow slightly cocked. “Did you infect him or something?”

Craig has this thing about speaking to him directly which is that he _never fucking does it_.

His questions startles Kyle, though, who immediately becomes concerned. “Shit, I don’t thinks so. But you never actually stay up for the _whole_ night, so maybe it’s just, like... exhaustion.”

He feels Stan’s forehead with his palm, frowning. Craig pulls his phone out of his pocket.

“I’m just tired, dude,” Stan insists, batting his hand away dismissively - but really, now he thinks about it, he could have easily caught something from touching Kyle’s gross tissues on Saturday and hanging around his gross body. He wonders how Craig thinks he’d have caught it.

For his part, though, Craig just stands there looking as disinterested as always and plays Temple Run.

“Okay,” Kyle says uncertainly. He gives Stan a hard look that seems to convey that if Stan is sick and he stays here the rest of the day Kyle will verbally beat the shit out of him for it later. “I’ll see you later then. Go check with the nurse in case.”

Stan says, “Sure,” with absolutely no actual intention of doing so, even though his head is starting to hurt a bit. He watches Craig say something inaudible to Kyle as they head off in the opposite direction, walking so close together their hands bump with every step.

Privately, Stan doesn’t really know Kyle sees in him. He’d never say anything about it, because that would make things weird, but - Craig’s kind of dull and weirdly hostile (at least around Stan, anyway) and aside from being into dudes, Stan doesn’t know what they have in common. But he isn’t sure that he and Wendy had much in common outside of being straight, either, so he should let it go and definitely, _definitely_ never let Kyle know he even so much as _thinks_ it, unless he wants to see him go fucking ballistic.

Instead of heading to his next class or the nurse’s office, Stan goes upstairs to the library. Butters is there studying for a test and says if he wants to nap he’ll warn him if anybody comes, and gosh, Stan, you really oughta go to sleep earlier, and Stan says thanks and then promptly passes out on the table between them.

-

It's lunch, and Stan _is_ fucking sick.

Butters is rubbing his back and Kenny is sitting as far away from him as is possible at the same table after telling Stan, apologetically, that he couldn't afford to spread anything to his family. It’s fair enough, Stan thinks; but the thought of being a potential health shitstorm in the McCormick household or a possible bizarre reason for Butters' satanic parents to ground him just by sitting here and breathing their air makes him feel even more stupid and miserable.

Cartman is there too, noisily, obnoxiously warning everyone who passes by them in the lunch hall to keep back from Stan unless they want to get his Jew AIDs.

"It's fifteen times as terminal," Cartman tells a terrified looking freshman girl, solemnly.

Because Stan doesn't currently have the energy to reach over the table and punch him for it, Kenny does, instead, because he's reliable like that.

" _Ey!_ These people have a right to know what danger they're in, Kenny! Don’t you fucking hit me."

Stan blows his nose into another one of Butters' offered tissues that smell like aloe vera and are soft and nice until he forcibly blasts all of the hideous goop out his nose into them.

"There, there," Butters soothes, patting his back again and giving him a worried look. "You sure don't look good."

"I _know_ , Butters," Stan answers, meaner than he intends it to be. He's irritable and tired and his head is sore and he feels too hot and look, there's Kyle on his way over - fucking _great_.

Cartman warns him, loudly, "Uh-oh, Stan, he's back to finish you off!"

"Shut the fuck up, fatstert," Kyle counters without even looking at him. His eyes go soft and fix on Stan, mouth drawn into a line, and Stan knows what he's going to say before he does it, which is: "I'm taking you home."

"Oh, come on, Kyle, haven't you violated the poor boy enough?" Cartman asks.

Kyle ignores him. Kenny punches him again. As expected, Cartman blows up at him and is successfully distracted from the conversation.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Kyle," Butters advises. He checks his dorky little yellow wristwatch. "There's only five minutes of lunch left, and after this we have a test in French, remember?"

For a moment, Kyle just stares at Butters with his lips pressed together, considering this, and then he sighs and pulls out his phone.

"I'll ask Craig to take you," Kyle mutters as he taps at the screen. "He's free next period."

Stan is about muster the energy to argue _that_ idea when he notices that Cartman, having heard Kyle mention Craig's name, completely drops whatever argument he was having with Kenny and turns back to them, the look on his face nothing short of gleeful.

"You're getting your _boyfriend_ to take Stan now?" Cartman bursts out, delightedly.

Kyle tenses as he puts his phone back into his pocket. A muscle in his jaw spasms.

Cartman takes his clear annoyance as encouragement, and after flashing a quick, pleased smirk, bites it back down with visible effort and then continues his shit-eating tirade. "I ask you, is there anything _left_ for you twisted perverts to take from him? Is Craig going to put his hairless chode into the hollow shell that remains of our old friend Stan here at your command? While you watch with all ten fingers crammed into your buttgina? Oh yes, _you'd_ like that, wouldn't you Kyle, you little _fa_ -"

Then Kyle slugs Cartman right in the face, _hard_ , and it's so awesome that in the brief instant it happens Stan thinks witnessing it alone heals him back to perfect health.

Cartman starts sputtering, holding his bruising cheek in his hand and looking a mix between incredulous, pissed off, and close to tears.

"I said shut the fuck up, you fat bastard!" Kyle hisses, red-faced.

"That was a fucking hate crime, Jew!" Cartman stands, unsteadily, and slams his hands on the table. "I'm reporting your scrawny, cock-loving ass for a hate crime against straights! You better lawyer up, Kyle."

"What the fuck are you _talking_ about?" Kyle yells, furious, but Cartman just stomps off, most likely headed somewhere secluded enough that he can call his mom and shriek-cry at her about Kyle being an asshole without being heard.

There’s some clapping from other tables. Bebe catcalls, Token whoops, and Jimmy calls, “Nice going, Kyle. R-right in the kisser!”

"Badass," Kenny compliments, aiming a slow mo punch at Kyle's cheek, but he's too busy vibrating with anger to acknowledge any of it.

He looks down at where Cartman was sitting and scowls. "Fuck his fat ass so fucking hard."

"Yeah," Stan agrees, congested, and then he sniffs.

Apparently, the sound reminds Kyle of the reason any of this happened. He looks back down at Stan, worriedly, and puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Dude, you _need_ to go home." His mouth twitches downward. "Shit. I should've _made_ you leave on Saturday instead of sit around with me while I stewed in disease all day. Shit. Sorry."

"Shut up. That's stupid, Kyle," Stan tells him, although it may not be very reassuring when his voice sounds so obviously blocked up. He wishes Kyle could just ditch and take him home so they could box up in his room all day ripping on bad TV. He wishes Kenny could sell them a joint and they could sprawl over Stan’s shitty single, play _bowlero_ on repeat, get stoned and talk about how they’ll be friends forever and all that stupid shit.

He wishes he wasn't getting a ride home from fucking _Craig_.

As soon as the thought bitterly crosses his mind, the bell rings, and Craig appears in the distance, walking towards them with his phone in one hand and a pack of Doritos in the other.

"Godspeed, man," Kenny says, giving Stan a kind of weird, knowing look and a light pat on the head before taking off.

Butters, obviously panicked at the idea of being a minute late for his test, shoots Stan an uneasy smile and says, "Hope you feel better, Stan."

And then it's just Stan, Kyle, and Kyle's boyfriend, who probably wouldn't care if Stan was lying dead and horribly mutilated across the lunch table right now, and who's about to give Stan what will probably be the most horrible five minutes of his whole life, and that’s _including_ his first time with Wendy.

"Brain food," Craig says, robotically, handing the Doritos to Kyle.

Kyle smiles at him a little awkwardly and pops one into his mouth. "Sweet, dude."

The sudden urge to throw up is added to the list of ways Stan feels shitty right now. He blows his nose into the already damp, absolutely done tissue Butters left him.

He can feel Kyle give him a look. "You know where he lives?"

"Yes, since it's literally right next to your house and I’ve, you know. Been inside of it.”

Kyle rolls his eyes. "Well, wait until you get him home before you die in a horrible car accident, dick."

He leans down to Stan's level. The lunch hall is practically empty and Kyle's going to be late for his test, and Stan doesn't know if that's because he's concerned for his health or because he wants to engage in more weird pseudo-flirting with his boyfriend.

He touches Stan's forehead for the second time today and looks sincerely worried. "Call me later, okay?"

Stan nods, feeling like a shitty friend for thinking badly of him on top of everything else.

After exchanging middle fingers with Craig, Kyle has to practically run to class and leave Stan to this all around terrible situation.

Maybe it won't be so bad. Maybe Stan will drop dead before they even get to the car park.

Craig crouches down underneath the table for a minute and then stands back up with Stan's backpack slung across his shoulder, doubled up over his own.

"C'mon," he says, and starts on his way without waiting for Stan to get up and join him.

As expected, the walk to Craig's car is silent, their footsteps awkwardly loud on the floors as they navigate through hallways and staircases to an exit, Stan a few steps behind because he's currently unable to stop dragging his feet or go at the pace of a normal human being.

One look tells Stan Craig's car is pretty gross and carpeted in all manner of trash, but when they get in and he can drop his heavy, aching body into one of its hard seats and shut his eyes, he finds he can't actually give a fuck. He’s too tired, too sick, too uneasy with his current company.

The car doesn't start up, though, and when he opens his eyes, curiously, he finds Craig rifling through his own bag and pulling out a half-empty box of painkillers, the same kind he gave Kyle a few days ago.

"Here, dude," Craig offers, giving him complete eye-contact and everything as he does it.

Stan looks at him hesitantly before he accepts. He pops two out, sniffling and viciously _hating_ himself for sniffling. "Uh, thanks."

He swallows them down with a mouthful of from the bottle of water in his bag and sits the box in the passenger seat cup holder with no better options nor any idea just how much conversation he's likely to get out of Craig if he asks.

This is weird, and his head thumps when the car starts and they roll over the first pothole of the road home and Jesus fucking Christ, today _sucks._

The silence that hits them is as awkward as expected, but Stan can't really deal with the noise of the radio right now and Craig doesn't bother suggesting it. His nose is drippy and he keeps rubbing the same chafing, damp tissue into it, and he wishes he wasn't too tense to lie back and shut his eyes for a while but there's just something between the two of them that keeps him on edge - the tension of both of them being totally aware of the other’s dislike.

"Why don't you like me?" Stan asks, and, impressively, it manages to sound more pathetic aloud than it did in his head.

When Craig turns to look at him there is real, visible emotion on his face: confusion.

"Because you _hate_ me?" he supplies, drawing the words out like they’ve been obvious all along.

Stan stops rubbing at his nose to stare at him with his eyebrows drawn. "Yeah, ‘cause you hated me first."

"No I didn't," Craig says, and it's mostly as apathetic as always but with a hint of defensiveness. He's frowning at the road. "Don't act like you haven't been having a shit fit about me dating Kyle the past few months."

What the fuck?

"What the _fuck?_ I have no idea what you’re talking about. _You’re_ the one treating _me_ like an asshole over it.”

Craig says nothing, hands tightening briefly around the wheel, and then he pulls in next to the community centre and cuts off the ignition, turning to look at him full-on. Stan feels abruptly less groggy than five minutes ago and more prepared to punch a gut if he has to, even though Craig doesn’t look like he’s about to try starting a fight. Probably.

“You’re jealous,” Craig states, flatly, and he leaves no time for Stan to even _begin_ arguing. “You’re used to having Kyle around whenever you want, and I’m intruding on that, and you think I’m not good enough for him or something because I never saved him from any magicians’ stupid cult or the Apple terms and conditions agreement.”

He rolls his eyes and puts up a silencing hand when Stan opens his mouth. “Whatever, I get it. You think I home-wrecked you. But we’re not still thirteen and you can’t look at me like I’m being some massive asshole for asking Kyle to hang out or taking his attention off of you for five minutes because we’re dating now, man, and you can either deal with it, or at least stop looking like I’m about to cause you physical harm every time I want to talk to my boyfriend.”

Stan doesn’t know how to do anything other than gape at him for a while.

Eventually, he feels so profoundly uncomfortable that he has to turn away and wince at the window instead. He feels like he’s just been doused with icy water and then kicked right in the emotional nads. “You say jealous like - I mean, I’m _not_ , but you say it like you mean...”

He gives Craig a pointed look. Craig’s expression reverted back to non-existent some time in the last few moments Stan spent relocating brain cells.

“I don’t mean anything,” he says. This time the robotic sound of it seems less like his awful normal voice and more like it’s the only way he can force out words he _knows_ are bullshit to keep Stan from legitimately freaking out. “You guys are just used to spending all your time together.”

That’s all he says, and then he leaves Stan to try absorbing all the shock and _weirdness_ of the last five minutes, which would be hard enough even if he wasn’t sick. He gives a moody look out the window without exactly knowing why. Maybe it’s because Craig’s acting like _he’s_ the most hostile one here, which is bullshit, Stan thinks, although he’s admittedly less certain of that fact than he was before.

Craig drums his fingers on the wheel and then sighs. “Look. Kyle likes me.”

Stan doesn’t flinch, but the urge hits him.

“It’d be way less shitty on him if we tried to like each other. I guess.”

It’s not that Stan even _hates_ Craig or anything - they were actually pretty close in elementary, when Craig was one of the only other kids in his karate class. Their parents used to take them both for a celebratory TGI’s together after competitions. He remembers going back to Craig’s afterwards once and playing his PS2 until Mrs Tucker came into his room at 2am and told them she could hear them laughing and it was their bedtime four fucking hours ago and she had an appointment with her gyno in five hours, for Christ’s sake.

It was different in middle school, when Craig dropped karate for the school basketball team and started third-wheeling Stan and Kyle on walks home after practice, basically just to bicker with Kyle about who sucked the most at shooting drills out of the two of them that afternoon.

They even both joined the high school team, but after the 10th grade Stan started getting Kyle after football practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays and leaving early with him because of a shitty excuse about not wanting to miss afternoon Terrence and Phillip reruns (which he ended up genuinely meaning after the first time, because the show was still funny in a nostalgic way and they had fun lounged out across the Marsh living room, both sweaty from sports clubs but pleasantly tired, eating six disgusting packs of Cheesy Poofs between them).

Of course, now that’s not the case, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays Stan goes home with Cartman after he gets out of working on the school newspaper with a bunch of loser kids he vehemently, vocally hates (a club he’s only a member of in the first place is because he’s a nosy asshole and enjoys planting occasional bullshit stories, mentally sabotaging the other, far weaker members and riling up Wendy to impossible degrees).

Now if he went home with Kyle and Craig, _he’d_ be the third-wheel. The thought is surprisingly painful, like he cut himself so quickly on the jagged edge of something that he didn’t notice until it started to bleed.

“... yeah,” Stan agrees, quietly. He sniffs, and when that does nothing, sighs and reluctantly wipes his nose on his jacket sleeve. “You’re right.”

Craig looks at him for a minute, then does that thing with his mouth he did on Saturday that - must really be the way he smiles. Stan returns it, uneasily, and then Craig starts the car up again and drives him home, the awkwardness effectively quadruple what it was before.

-

The only company Stan has while he recovers is his dad, who is the worst possible caretaker out of everyone he knows. Even Cartman.

He’s only there at his mom’s insistence, really, and doesn’t seem to care about his son’s well-being as much as he cares about whatever the fuck is happening in today’s 30 consecutive episodes of Cake Boss. Every time Stan asks him to turn it, _please, for the love of **god** , dad_, his dad makes this outraged sound of disbelief and says, “Well goddamnit, Stan, it’s not _all_ about you, you know,” and then sits his beer can on Stan’s forehead and tunes out of reality again.

Stan would kill him but he’s too tired to think up any usable methods and too weak to even stand up.

When Kyle calls, his dad is thankfully taking his punctual 8pm dump upstairs, and is therefore unable to bitch at him for talking over Buddy, the incredibly obnoxious baker who specialises in both making shitty looking cakes and keeping his dad amused, like a colourful hand-puppet would for a two year old.

“Hey,” he answers, lowly.

“ _Oh, man. You sound rough_.”

He pulls the blanket his mom draped over him earlier up to his neck. It’s Shelley’s old one, and it has Hannah Montana’s fucking face all over it which, understandably, serves Stan approximately _no_ comfort. He groans. “I’m dying and my dad is doing his best to make it as painful as possible.”

“ _Cake Boss again?_ ”

“All day, Kyle. I want to stick the dowel rods they’re using in this 60 tier cake into my fucking eyeballs.”

Kyle snickers. “ _Yeah, that’ll make you feel better._ ” Then he goes a little quiet and Stan remembers with what happened today with a stab of embarrassment, and wonders if Kyle knows about it.

But Kyle just says, “ _Stan, I’m like - I’m really sorry I dicked you over with all my germs like this. It was a pretty lame thing to do._ ”

“Stop, dude,” Stan tells him, almost laughingly. “It happens. I’m not mad at you or anything, don’t be ridic. Besides, my immune system is _way_ stronger than yours, so I should be over it soon enough.”

“ _Good point, but fuck you_.”

They talk a little more, and when Kyle asks if he thinks he’ll be coming into school this week Stan says he isn’t sure when the answer is actually a giant, resounding _hell_ fucking no. School is fucked and Stan pretty much hates being there lately. He has barely any classes with Kyle or Kenny or even Wendy this year, and all the teachers talk about is how much more fucked they’re going to be in a few years if they don’t buckle down right now. Kyle says he hopes he makes it in at some point and Stan feels shitty about it and quickly changes the subject.

He hangs up at the sound of his dad’s footsteps on the stairs, preemptively avoiding having him say something embarrassing in the background.

“Wendy checking up on you?” his dad asks, standing at the side of the couch with his housecoat wide open to reveal gross boxers and an equally gross beer belly he gives an idle scratch.

Of all the things Stan _is_ mad at his dad for, not remembering that he and Wendy are currently broken up isn’t one of them. It’s definitely one of his most understandable mistakes, anyway, unlike all the other batshit insane stuff Stan would never even try to wrap his head around. He just says, distractedly, “Yeah,” and drops his phone on the floor before trying to get some more shut-eye.

-

Kyle doesn’t know about the conversation between he and Craig, or at least it _seems_ like he doesn’t.

But he’s good at lying, especially to fit around Stan’s particular sensitivities - and getting a ride home from Craig, sick and pathetic as he was, would have been embarrassing enough without adding the fact he was pulled up on all his immature shit, and didn’t even get to point a finger at Craig for being the same way with him.

Knowing Kyle, who specialises in knowing Stan, bringing up his confrontation with his boyfriend is most likely a terrible idea. So maybe he does know, and he just doesn’t want to humiliate Stan any more by mentioning it.

If he does, Stan thinks, it’s kind of uncool for him to let Craig act like he’s the only one acting weird between them. It’d be really fucking shitty of him to _agree_ \- but, Kyle doesn’t mention it, so Stan just tries, really tries not to linger on it too much, and after he does that he says,

“Craig said something weird to me that day he drove me home.”

Because that doesn’t _work,_ obviously.

Across the table, Kyle’s eyebrows rise, and he looks away from one of the dozens of university pamphlets in front of him to blink at Stan in surprise. Stan, who was forced to come in the last day of the week by his mom and is generally reluctant to even _think_ about school on his best days, is instead focused on playing Draw Something with Cartman under the table, which mostly consists of squiggly almost-penis shapes and having Cartman send him the occasional enraged, all-caps message about how he can’t draw for shit.

Stan shifts a little in his chair, wondering how to approach this discussion the least awkward way imaginable. He clears his throat and joins both his hands on the table without realising how weird that makes him look first. “Just - you know he and I - we don’t really get along, I guess.”

Something vaguely horrified appears in Kyle’s eyes.

He looks at Stan’s hands, his lips pressed white together and eyes wide. “Um. Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Stan repeats, unsteadily. “He said that basically - _I’m_ the one causing it.”

Kyle keeps staring at him with that same unblinking, fascinated terror, and doesn’t say anything.

Stan furrows his brow. “You think that’s true?”

Knowing Kyle, if Stan asks his opinion on something outright, Kyle physically won’t be able to keep his answer from bursting out of him like Alien from John Hurt’s chest - although he puts visible effort into trying, this time.

“I don’t think it’s... _un_ true,” Kyle tells him, hesitantly, and Stan has to swallow down a choking sound as quickly as he can. “Not that I expect you to like him just because I’m - you know, whatever - but it does kind of suck that I can't hang out with you at the same time and not have you both looking like you want to knock a couple of the other’s teeth out.”

At this, Stan straightens and points at him. “So you get that it’s a mutual thing?”

Kyle frowns and cocks an eyebrow at him. “Yeah, _now_ it is. But before, you were -” He glances at the table between them, then straight into Stan’s eyes when he adds, “You were cold, dude.”

Stan stares at him.

“In what way,” he says, and he tries to sound as calm as possible and not like Kyle just morphed into the shape of Judas and shanked him in the back a whole bunch of times, “was I _‘cold_ ’ to him?”

Now Kyle stares. There’s something genuinely disbelieving in the look on his face, something in his eyes like he can’t figure out if Stan’s being serious or not, and a frustrated curl to his lips. His jaw clenches, brows furrow, and for a second Stan worries he’s about to be on the end of a Big Broflovski Bitch-out, as Cartman calls them, but Kyle just shuts his eyes and inhales, placing all of the pamphlets in his hands onto the table and leaning back.

“You know, I was fine with Wendy, and that wasn’t always -” He looks briefly pained and then lets out another deep breath. “It wasn’t always _easy_ for me.”  
  
Stan doesn’t really know what that means. Honestly, when they were dating sometimes it felt like Kyle and Wendy were better suited than he was with her: they agreed with each others politics, not to mention they both actually _knew_ stuff about politics; they liked the same pretentious movies Kyle pretended to hate around their friends; one time Stan even goaded Kyle into dancing with her at one of Token’s parties when his leg was in a cast from football practice. He remembers sort of hating that they looked good together, Kyle lanky and awkward and visibly resenting everyone in the room for witnessing his attempted dancing, and Wendy laughing along good-naturedly, trying to help move his awkward limbs to the beat.

Of course, when Kyle came out he’d felt really stupid about it, and after that he and Wendy didn’t seem to get along as much. After that, most of the times Stan argued with her she’d throw Kyle’s name in his face like he was somehow iceberging their romantic voyage aboard the fucking Titanic by existing, and he’d have no clue what she meant by it.

Kind of like now.

Kyle looks at him, sort of desperate and helpless for a moment, and then just sighs. “Sorry, that... Forget it.”

Stan keeps trying to work it out anyway, but he can’t. He can’t work out why Kyle doesn’t look stunned and a little pissed anymore, why instead he just looks - sad.

His thumb runs along the words on a pamphlet, one for NYU, and Stan imagines him being so far away and feels like something inside of him is dying because one day, one _fucking_ day. He opens his mouth to apologize, to say _forget I asked, I’m being an asshole, I’ll shut up, it doesn’t matter_ , to say _something_ , but Kyle beats him to the punch.

“You haven’t liked Craig since middle-school,” Kyle tells him, and Stan feels like he should dispute that, but also like it’s unnervingly true - and how does Kyle know stuff about him offhand like that? Things he’s never actually mentioned to him aloud? “You didn’t speak to him for like, a week after I told you that we - you just pretended like he wasn’t there and when he said anything it looked like someone was punching you in the dick.”

Stan wants to ask what the fuck he’s talking about, because he has no memory of this. He barely remembers any of that first week after he took out the trash and saw Craig ducking into Kyle’s house next door except for getting that anxious explanation out of him after. He remembers lunches feeling weird, because Craig was taking up his space and some of the other guys were sitting with them for the first time in a while. Butters kept asking if he wanted anything and Jimmy was cracking joke after joke to Stan and giving him a kind, sympathetic smile, and both of them had really been pissing him off.

They looked - okay together, too. Craig and Kyle. Stan remembers Kyle talking emphatically, with his hands, like he did when he got really worked up about something. Craig was giving him an indulgent almost-smile that looked weird on his face, and Stan didn’t like it. Hated it, maybe.

“I - I didn’t...” He feels so stupid, again, sitting across from Kyle and his college pamphlets and the half-eaten bag of Doritos in front of him. He slumps and tries to fold in on himself. He can’t even look at Kyle. “Sorry, man.”

There’s a pause, and then Kyle’s chair scrapes along the floor and he’s up, walking to the one beside Stan and sitting on the edge of it, so close that when he looks at him Stan can’t avoid looking back. It hurts, in a strange way it never has before. Stan had Wendy, once, but everyone seemed to know that would never last, and he’d always end up spending his weekends with Kyle again when it eventually died out. But they’re running out of weekends. There’s two years left, and then college, and between now and then, there’s Craig.

Stan doesn’t know if that will or won’t last, to be honest, and the thought is quietly terrifying.

“Look,” Kyle says, and after a moment’s consideration he puts a hand on Stan’s shoulder. Stan wants to flinch at the hesitation, but Kyle looks so sympathetic, so concerned, and mostly Stan just doesn’t want to be outgrown already or left behind. “Craig’s - Craig. He’s kind of an asshole, but... cool, really.”

There’s something pleading in his eyes, something Stan knows would give in if pressed at. Kyle is asking for his permission. Like maybe Kyle _would_ , if Stan asked him: if Stan said he just couldn’t accept Craig being another part of Kyle’s life, Kyle would say okay and it would all end there, and he’d get the walks home on Tuesdays and Thursdays and the all of the Fridays and Saturdays back again - but there would be something wrong between them afterwards, a gap deep in the heart of what they are that Stan carefully hollowed out with bare and bloody hands.

Before this - Kyle was _lonely_. People used to joke that he was Stan’s eternal third-wheel, that they were something _else_ ; or worse, that Kyle was with Kenny or, god forbid, Cartman. He never talked about that stuff to Stan, was never comfortable sharing those kind of feelings with him, or anyone else, but Stan knew. Stan cut in that night at Token’s party between he and Wendy, swayed with her on one leg and a crutch, laughing, and then saw Kyle in the corner of the room looking hard into his paper cup and thought for a sudden, horrible second that Kyle was going to cry.

He thought he’d have felt better, joking around with Wendy in the middle of a bunch of other uncoordinated teenaged couples, but looking at Kyle from there had just made him feel so much worse.

“If you like him, then... so do I,” Stan says, softly, touching the hand on his arm.

Kyle smiles at him with sad eyes, and Stan would think it was odd if he didn’t feel that way, too. He parts his lips to speak, and then just looks at Stan’s face, instead, and all Stan knows is that he never, ever wants to see him so alone again.

It kind of breaks his heart, he thinks - and he looks at the freckle by Kyle’s sharp jawline, the crooked shape of his nose, the length of his eyelashes - shatters it all to pieces to know he’ll never be able to keep Kyle from feeling lonely like that. Not really.

He’s still got Kyle’s hand in his, and they’re leaning into each other a little too closely, but the library’s basically empty now, and he feels like he should take the opportunity in while he’s got it. After a while Kyle looks at his face like doing it is beginning to hurt him, and Stan knows he should quit tracing along the lines that make up his with his eyes, but it takes Kyle’s hand slipping out from beneath his to knock him out of it.

Kyle moves over to the other side of the table quickly and starts packing away his things. He flashes Stan a brief smile when their eyes meet, then stands up and hauls his backpack onto his shoulders.

He clears his throat, pulls his phone out to look at, says, “The bell’s about to -” and then gets interrupted when it punctually does.

-

So Stan is cool with it, now, or at least he’s really trying to make it seem that way in front of people.

A few of them are at Token’s on Saturday since his parents have gone a day trip up to Denver and it’s easy to annoy him into buying everyone take-out for dinner if they all try hard enough. Cartman says Token actually owes him food for attending, since he hardly wants to be here with Kyle, that Jewish asshole, and Token tells him through his teeth, “I don’t _want_ you here, Cartman,” but - like that’ll do anything.

Stan even talks to Craig when the pizzas come. They pretend it isn’t really fucking awkward to be around to each other, Stan grapples for conversation with a lame, “Pineapple pizza’s fucking gross,” and Craig says, “Wrong,” then takes a greasy slice of it.

Being able to hang out with the two of them at once doesn’t seem like it’s the joy Kyle hoped it would be, even in Token’s fancy luxury-sofas living room; but that has almost nothing to do with them and everything to do with the fact one side of Cartman’s face is wrapped needlessly in bandages and he keeps trying to start group conversations with things like, “So what’s with all the ass eating in normal people porn nowadays? Kyle? ... Craig? You guys wanna tell us how your people spread it so far? Pretty smart move, I’ll admit, since now I do take a minute before letting any chick on my dick in case she thinks I’m going near the no-no hole with my mouth after.”

“Cartman,” Kyle says through gritted teeth, “Whatever girls ever do want ‘ _on your dick_ ’, as statistically impossible as their existence may seem, at least I might be the thing that ends up protecting them from it.” He sneers. “And like there’s anything on this whole disgusting planet you _wouldn’t_ eat, lard-ass.”

Clyde stares at them in horror, mouth open and full of chewed-up pizza. “Oh my god. Do you guys _ever_ stop?”

“You’re like, obsessed with how Kyle has sex, huh,” Craig says, looking more focused on the television - where Kenny is meticulously reversing over random pedestrian number fifteen - than on this conversation.

Predictably, neither Cartman or Kyle like the implications of that statement. Stan wishes he could have warned Craig that Kyle does not appreciate any jokes about the hateboner Cartman has for him, but at the same time silently enjoys the look of pissed-off betrayal Kyle shoots him.

“Craig, you are, truly, one rancid little homo,” Cartman says in a grim voice.

Craig flips him off without looking away from GTA.

At least after that, Cartman lays off the homophobia for a few hours and Kyle calms down enough that Kenny accidentally grenade-launching himself makes him laugh until he cries a little.

It’s actually going relatively well, which isn’t the norm when they’re all together like this, so when it gets late Token starts offering beers, in a much better mood than earlier, Stan agrees and takes one. He sits with Timmy in the kitchen while he polishes it off and talks to him about how it’s good they hang out without any drama like this sometimes, since they’ll all be split up in a year or two, and Timmy seems to earnestly agree - his whole family will be moving after graduation, so far set on a school in New York that they think would suit Timmy’s needs best.

Maybe he doesn’t entirely seem happy with the idea, but Stan kind of wishes he knew exactly where he’ll be in two years. There’s this terrible suspicion in the back of his mind that’s spreading through his brain like a poisonous gas most days: that he might still just be _here_ , right here, the same as he’s ever been, only...

He pushes the thought away, but when Timmy gets called into the living room to take a turn, he feels abandoned with it, and the sound of the guys laughing in the next room over feels unsettlingly distant.

“Oh,” someone says.

Stan looks up. It’s Craig, because the world hates him like that.

He looks back at Stan for a moment, then grabs a beer out the fridge and takes the other seat at Token’s glass dining table, which is _fine_ for him since apparently he doesn’t feel as odd and horrible around Stan as Stan does around him, but him being here just makes all those shitty, lonely feelings intensify.

Those two years he’s got left with Kyle are fucked up, because Craig fucked them up, and doesn’t that mean Stan’s basically already alone?

“Why doesn’t Kyle drink?” Craig asks him, thoughtfully.

Stan pretends to take a mouthful from the empty beer bottle in his hand, hoping it’ll make him look more normal than he feels right now. “He’s diabetic.”

Craig’s eyebrows rise. “He is?”

Saying it felt automatic because it’s something he’s known forever, but - maybe he shouldn’t have told Craig. Maybe Kyle didn’t want him to know. Fuck.

He just nods and picks at the sticker on his bottle. “He’s not a great drunk, either,” he adds, quietly, which Kyle _definitely_ wouldn’t want him sharing.

The first time Kyle got drunk he got so angry at Stan that he made a fist and then said he hated himself for being incapable of hitting him. He was right in Stan’s face, angry and upset, and Kenny had to pull him away and take him out of Cartman's house to cool down. He’d apologized later, a _lot_ , because even though Stan tried to act like it hadn't shaken him up Kyle had known better - sometimes Stan could tell when they looked at each other that Kyle was thinking about it and hating himself.

He'd never had more than one drink when they went out afterwards; except for one night at Clyde’s house where he apparently almost beat the living shit out of Cartman. Stan wasn’t there that time because it was his second three month anniversary date with Wendy (he thinks? That sounds about right, anyway) but he heard about it the next day when Clyde was bitching about having to get a blood-stain out of his mom’s rug.

Kyle came into school with a broken nose and Stan freaked out over it the whole day and felt bad for not going with him. Cartman, who Stan heard had (predictably) egged Kyle on the entire night and then (predictably) had his ass handed to him, didn’t come into school at all (which was predictable).

“Oh, yeah,” Craig says. “Me and Kenny had to pull him off of Cartman one night. Not that the fat fuck wasn’t asking for it.”

It should have been Stan though, he thinks. That bump in Kyle’s nose now is essential to him and Stan can’t even imagine it gone. He remembers how bruised Kyle’s eyes were underneath for days, how when he tentatively touched the gauze over the swollen skin and asked, completely and belatedly terrified for Kyle’s well-being, “Does this hurt?” Kyle had just laughed and given him this appreciative smile, told him, “I’m _okay_ , dude.”

But Stan had hated that Kyle had been in the hospital with Kenny at his side while he was eating bad Italian food with Wendy, wondering if she’d expect them to try having sex again that night. He hates that they did try, and afterwards he had a missed call from Kyle and a drunken voicemail from fucking Cartman that consisted of him spewing slurs and hate speech for an unintelligible ten minutes. Stan hated that Kyle had been hurt and Craig had probably been the one to grab the ice from Clyde’s freezer and press it against the broken bone. Stan hated that some drunk fucking hillbillies tried to start shit with Kenny for wearing a wig and Bebe’s second-hand coat while they waited in the hospital and she’d got a busted lip and her best wig near shredded.

Stan hated that he wasn’t there to protect anyone. He _still_ hates it.

He can feel Craig looking at him but keeps his eyes fixed on the bowl of fruit in the middle of the table. Craig sighs.

“I’m just going to cut the bullshit for a minute and ask you straight-out” he says, and for some reason the question makes Stan feel abruptly sick with dread.

He turns to Craig, who’s looking back at him like he’s really trying to figure him out, his brow furrowed and arms crossed. Waiting on him to speak makes Stan’s heart beat so loudly for a nauseated moment he imagines himself actually throwing up all over the two of them.

Then Craig sighs again, asks him, “Why aren’t _you_ dating Kyle?”

Stan thinks he should burst out laughing at this, or stare at Craig with comically wide eyes and drop his bottle on the floor in shock or - something. But his expression doesn’t change, and his heart keeps hammering, and he doesn’t know _what_ to do.

“I don’t - I don’t really know what you mean, dude.” He sounds more scared than confused when he says it, and he doesn’t even know why he bothers doing so - it’s obvious what Craig means, but it just won’t compute properly in his brain.

Craig frowns at him slightly, and Stan fucking hates this, every moment of it, hates that screwing up things with Kyle wasn’t enough and now he’s just started screwing directly with Stan’s head.

Stan _hates_ him, and it’s horrible because he’s never really hated anybody before, and he knows Craig doesn’t deserve it.

Thankfully, Craig seems to know that now would be a good time to shut up about this subject; but when he leans back in his chair he looks like he understands something and Stan doesn’t know what.

“I’m sorry,” is all he says, and he sounds like he honestly is.

But Stan is still angry, and now he feels like Craig has seen something compromising in him with his two dead-eyes. Like Craig has seen just how beaten up the inside of him is, tied together in strings instead of arteries, a terrible imitation of a functioning human-being, and now he just feels bad for Stan more than anything else.

They sit like that, Stan stewing in anger and something else strange and depressing that he doesn’t care to prod at, and Craig watching him with a sort of newfound interest. Kenny comes in after a few moments of it and makes a choked sound at the sight of them sitting together in the awkward silence.

“C’mon back in, guys,” he goads, feigning cheer. He gets a beer out of the fridge and then stands at Stan’s back. He puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. “Help me finish off the pizzas.”

-

Stan tries to forget about it.

“Dude, you should look at these,” Kyle advises him, tapping his college pamphlets against Stan’s arm. He keeps pulling them out lately, pretending to flick through them when Stan _knows_ his heart is set on studying computer science at MIT.

Fuck Massachusetts.

Stan keeps looking at his phone screen and trying to work out what the fuck the drawing Cartman sent him is. “I have a year left of not looking at those that I’m really looking forward to.”

It’s lunch, and he’s sharing a massive bag of potato chips in the library with Kyle so he can study for an extra-credit presentation assignment in English. Stan’s actually in the same class as him because he’s naturally pretty good with languages, but he doesn’t want extra-credit since they’re already supposed to be halfway through 1,000 word essay on this poem and he's meant to have read Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, which makes him kind of want to bawl his eyes out every time he looks at it.

Craig’s in detention for asking the religious education teacher he has beef with who the fuck the Corinthians were. Stan doesn’t know either, but he’s secretly pleased Craig’s in trouble for it.

“Well, do you know what you want to do?” Kyle presses, and Stan shifts uncomfortably and wants to get pissy about the third degree he’s getting, but - it’s Kyle.

He’d make something up, but they’d both know he was lying, so he just says, “No,” and feels distantly afraid of that uncertainty.

Kyle stops writing. There are notes all over his book in his neat, squashed up handwriting, and he could get into any school he wanted and Stan wishes uselessly that one of them existed here. “You could do anything, Stan,” he says, and it hurts Stan’s heart how he makes it sound like it’s actually true.

When Stan looks at him, Kyle is giving him this soft, almost desperate look.

“ _You_ could do anything,” Stan corrects, and it’s odd how that makes Kyle deflate. He sighs and stuffs his phone into the pocket of his hoodie, wondering how he ever thought he’d avoid this conversation until senior year, or at least the summer. “I’m a shitty student and a mediocre football player. I’m destined for like, community college and minimum wage. That’s just life.”

Kyle’s eyes widen at this, and then he looks _pissed_. “Dude, what the fuck? Do you really think that way?” He points his pen right in Stan’s face and tells him, “You’re not stupid, you’re self-defeating. You’re _smart_ , idiot, and Clyde shouldn’t be beating you on chemistry tests just because you’ve convinced yourself you’re doomed to failure or some bullshit.”

Stan wants to say, _I’m not smart enough for MIT_ , or, _I’m not smart enough to live away from home without you around_ , but those are both awful in their own ways. Stan doesn’t say that he’s scared of where his life might be going and he feels like he’ll never be sure what to do with it, and when he does try to think about this stuff he just feels like he’s choking on the ocean. Stan wants to admit that he doesn’t see the point in school anymore when he doesn’t know where anything in his life is going.

The horrible truth is that he just isn't ready to grow.

“Please try,” Kyle says, quietly, and he does look desperate, now. “Stan - you’re so much more than you give yourself credit for.”

Stan hates lying to Kyle - he’s not good at it, but more than anything he just _hates_ it. They don’t lie to each other. When they were thirteen they climbed into Stan’s treehouse for the first time in years at Kyle’s insistence and it was so cramped inside that their legs had to press for them to fit properly. Kyle looked terrified of him for a second and then in this quick, frantic breath he told Stan he was gay - before he even told his _family_ , before he told anyone else in the world. Stan said it was fine until it really felt like it was, and he hated himself for not feeling that way immediately: but that’s the point, really. It wouldn’t have done Kyle any good to know that thirteen year old Stan thought him being gay was weird.

There are some things it’s better for Stan to protect him from knowing, like that underneath he’s just a stupid kid who doesn't like change.

“Yeah,” he says, and he hates himself for it a little, for the fact that now if he fucks up Kyle will be so much more disappointed in him for making a promise otherwise - and maybe he will be in himself, too. He forces a fake smile. “Okay, dude.”

At least Kyle looks pleased with it. He smiles at Stan like growing up and breaking apart from each other will hurt less if they negotiate it this way, and Stan smiles back knowing nothing would.

-

Stan misses the summer.

It's October already, and whatever heat the town can maintain from those few weeks of sun in early July has officially been lost. Stan hates the cold, hates getting woken up too early on Saturday mornings by the sound of his dad yelling at the frost all over the car and his mom yelling at him for yelling before they go get groceries.

Kyle has this three months-ish thing with Craig tonight, and he keeps thinking, _three_ fucking months. The last time he and Wendy dated they didn't make it that far.

In a way he thinks probably makes him a shitty person, he kind of misses her, too. He's bored, and she's always been kind of like Kyle: she finds the same shit funny as Stan does and gets mad about all the injustice of the world. Maybe it's just the uneasy loneliness of your best friend having discovered an Other. Stan just wishes it weren't weird to hang out with your (thrice) ex-girlfriend like you haven't touched your genitals intimately together for three minute periods and cried in front of her afterwards. Maybe if that was a thing that had just happened _once_ then okay, he's consider the idea more, but the way things are - no.

There's a weird feeling following him around in the pit of his stomach today. He wishes he could sleep and get out if his head for a while, but when he's up he's definitely up, and Shelley doesn't help matters by blasting obnoxious pop music at him from next door.

He spends most of the day in pyjamas, not completely conscious, playing an ancient fighting game for the PS1 that’s no fun alone, really. His dad comes in at one point, still as unaware that knocking is an option as he was when Stan popped his first boner, saying his mom told him to check whether he was still alive which Stan did a lot of eye-rolling about.

Then, an hour later, Cartman comes in.

“Well, this is the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen,” he notes, looking down at Stan where he’s sagged into his gaming chair. “Get up, Stan. We have to go to Benihana, and they have a strict 'no looking like a sad piece of shit' policy. Smear some of your gayest hair product on your head and let’s get going.”

Stan doesn’t even bother looking away from the screen while he’s talking, let alone answering him, so of course Cartman responds by pressing the power button on his beaten up little PlayStation and giving it a kick for extra-asshole effect, because he’s a fucking asshole.

“I’m not going to Benihana with you,” Stan says.

Cartman scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Why do you guys _still_ think when I tell you we’re doing something it’s a request? Bitch, I wasn’t asking; I was telling. Put on some pants, pretend you aren’t a complete waste of everyone’s time, and come to fucking Benihana with me.” He looks straight into Stan’s face, solemnly. “You know you won’t win this, Stan.”

Sadly, he does sort of know that. But it’s only human nature to put up a fight against Cartman’s bullshit, and the day he stops trying to is probably the day Cartman kills him before he can.

“Why d’you wanna go so bad? Why don’t you take Kenny instead? Benihana’s, like, a _thing_ between you guys.”

The resistance Stan’s putting up makes Cartman huff like he can’t believe he has to deal with anyone denying him a thing. He puts up his middle finger. “One: because fuck you, Stan, that’s why.” He puts his index finger up with it. “Two: um, how about because Kenny’s poor as almighty fuck? I can’t be _doling_ out free Benihara meals every time I’m craving some goddamn teriyaki chicken. I believe there’s a limit on how much free shit you can give a person, okay. I’m not Obama.”  He sticks up the middle finger of his other hand. “Three: what the hell do you mean it’s a _thing_ between us? Are you, Stan Marsh, implying that there’s something gay about me and Kenny hanging out and Benihana together? And what, you and Kyle jerking each other’s waxed dicks in here to _Jizz Guzzlers 3_ is as hetero as friendship gets?”

Stan tenses. “I’m not going anywhere with you, fatass. Fuck off.”

Cartman holds both his hands up and gives him a wide-eyed look like he just overreacted. “Goddamnit, Stan, it was a joke. No need to blast your period all over it.” He drops ass-first onto Stan’s bed and goes quiet for a minute, then rolls his eyes. “Okay, _fine_. I asked Kenny earlier but he’s busy. And I know Kyle’s busy tonight exploring the depths of Craig’s asshole or whatever, so I thought... we haven’t hung out in a while.”

He clears his throat and doesn’t look at Stan. At these kind of moments, Stan always _tries_ not to believe him because he knows he’ll regret it later, but - when Cartman voluntarily looks as pathetic as he really is, he ends up giving in out of pity and trusting him anyway.

“Alright, I’ll come,” Stan agrees, standing up and shrugging. “Nothing else going on today anyway. And you...” He gives Cartman a reluctant smile. “I guess you have a point.”

Cartman smiles back, and Stan makes the mistake of forgetting that the reason he doesn’t hang out with him is because he’s an asshole, which Stan always does right before being reminded in some awful way that yes, Cartman is still a complete fucking asshole.

“I’ll get you in the car then,” he says, standing up again. He gives Stan a look. “Don’t take forever picking out whatever Hollister crap you’re gonna slap on, either, I booked the table and I refuse to be late because everything you wear is jocky trash.”

Stan flips him off before he’s all the way out the door, and then puts on a T-shirt with Hillary Clinton’s face on it that Kyle must have forgotten here just to see the look on Cartman’s face when he gets in the passenger’s seat with it.

He stares at Stan with genuine looking disbelief and wonder. “You honestly have no idea just how queer you are,” he says, which Stan responds to by punching him in the shoulder.

Cartman bitches about it, of course, but then starts up the car and surprisingly, doesn’t actually seem to have many terrible things to say on the drive there.

-

“You asshole,” Stan hisses at him from across the table. “You complete fucking _asshole_.”

Cartman tries to look as innocent as he can with two California rolls stuffed into his mouth at once. He swallows them down and then impales another with a chopstick, staring fixedly at something over Stan’s shoulder instead of at him. “Look, dude. I swear to god I didn’t know they’d be here.” He leans over the table, unblinking, and takes a slurping drink of his cola. “Swear to god, brah. No idea.”

“ _Bullshit_ , Cartman,” Stan snaps.

He’s more concerned about what’s going on behind Cartman, which is no doubt the reason they came here at all today: Kyle and fucking Craig.

“You’re trying to get him back for punching you in your stupid face again. God, what the fuck happens if he sees us spying on him?” Stan asks in a hushed voice, watching Kyle chew his food - looks like tuna, maybe, he can’t really make it out this far away.

Cartman takes a bite of the other roll. “Not spying on him,” he says around the mouthful. He still hasn’t taken his eyes off of whatever’s going on behind Stan. “Don’t give a fuck.”

“Bullshit,” Stan repeats, and - it looks like _neither_ of them are talking. He and Kyle always rip on couples who have nothing to say to each other when they eat out and they spot like, awkward young couples who visibly have nothing in common sitting in silence of thirty-somethings who’ve lost all interest in each other smiling at each other tightly, and it’s just so - wait, Kyle just said something.

“That _bitch_ ,” Cartman curses under his breath, a cluster of rice stuck to his first chin.

Stan’s eyes shoot from the other table to him. “What? What’d he say, did you hear it?”

“I don’t give a shit about him, Stan, Jesus Christ,” Cartman says. His eyes are locked intently. He slowly rubs the rice off his chin with the back of his hand, thoughtfully, then bangs his hands on the table and says, “Oh, _fuck_ this,” before getting up from his seat altogether and walking away.

There’s still another roll and a half left on his plate, which Stan finds odd since he’s never willingly left his own food alone with another person before. He cranes his head back to try to find what Cartman was looking at but can’t see anything of note beyond him stomping across the restaurant.

He turns back and sees Kyle playing with the food on his plate. Craig says something that makes one corner of his mouth lift. Stan wonders if they plan on having terrible sex after this like he had after all his important-ish dates with Wendy - or maybe genuinely _good_ sex. Oh god, Stan at least hopes it’s bad. For some reason it seems incredibly unfair if they have good sex, let alone if they have any sex at all. He needs to stop thinking about this. Kyle takes a drink of his water. Kyle should at least get to enjoy sex, but it’s doubtful that’ll happen for him with Craig fucking Tucker. He looks around over the rim of his glass, and he’s in his nicest fitting shirt with his hair all styled and he just deserves better, is the thing, and oh _merciful fucking god,_ he’s looking straight at Stan.

Then a hysterical sounding woman yells, “ _What the hell are you doing, Eric?!_ ”

Stan turns around to see that Cartman has poured what looks like a mixture of water and soy sauce down some dweeby looking guy Stan recognises from working on the school newspaper with him. He looks absolutely fucking terrified, drenched from head to toe and being hoisted up into standing by his ruined paisley sweater and Cartman’s fists. On the other side of the table is - Wendy?

The restaurant staff start hastily intervening. Cartman yells that everyone in this joint is a no-good little fucking nerd, at which point Stan throws down the cash for his untouched starter and decides it’s probably time to make a run for it.

Apparently, he’s not the only one thinking that.

Kyle and Craig have put on their coats and they’re making their way over to the door, close to where Stan’s sitting, and Stan hopes today is actually just one big fucking nightmare he's about to wake up from.

“Dude,” Kyle says, and Craig stands next to him looking more openly annoyed by Stan than ever, ever before.

With one arm in his coat and the other flailing around in search of its hole, Stan has trouble appearing nonchalant.

He goes to give them an awkward smile when he hears the sound of a dozen plates hitting the floor and turns to see a tipped over table, a lot of stunned customers, staff rushing around and Cartman knelt over the guy on the floor, giving him a nipple twister through his sweater. Wendy is pouring a table’s entire jug of water over Cartman’s head which doesn’t impede his efforts at all - if anything it just makes him look more insane.

When he turns back to Kyle and Craig he has no idea what’s meant to be said at a time like this.

“You need a ride?” Kyle asks, jingling his keys in his pocket. He looks resigned to the chaos Cartman just turned Benihana into, but Kyle hasn’t been very shocked by the shit he pulls since they were kids - he's learnt to repress a lot of his Cartman related emotions, but nowhere near all of them. Stan just feels depressingly well-equipped to deal with this incredibly shitty sort of thing.

“Uh, yeah, that’d...” He glances at Craig, whose entire forehead just pulsed. “If you guys don’t mind, I mean.”

Kyle shrugs at Craig. Craig looks like he’s imagining inventive things he could have done to Stan’s scrotum with his chopsticks.

-

Of all the things that happened to Stan today, this car-ride is probably the worst.

At first, Stan tries his best to explain that he was forced and guilt-tripped into Benihana by Cartman, and he had literally no idea they’d be there.

Kyle seems to actually believe him, which Stan’s partly shocked by because while he was saying it, he weirdly didn’t believe himself. Craig’s eyes flick to his chest in the mirror, where Hillary Clinton smiles back at him, and then at his face. He does not look particularly convinced.

After that, there’s almost no conversation. A guy is singing terribly at them from the speakers. So little is actually going on, but so much is happening in like, the _atmosphere_ : namely, Stan thinks Craig is thinking about killing him, and Stan, in turn, is thinking about ways to kill Craig first. Kyle seems to be aware there’s a lot of murderous intent in the car which - ironically, since none of it is directed towards him - seems to be killing him.

“I wonder why Cartman was so pissed at Wendy’s date,” Stan says, mostly just for something to say.

Kyle glances at him briefly in the mirror, shifting a little in his seat. Craig stares at him in the mirror.

There’s a pause, and then Kyle replies, “You know what he’s like. He loves ruining her life. He loves ruining everyone’s lives, but - hers, especially.” He clears his throat and adds in a quieter voice, “Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh my god,” Craig says, facing upwards like he’s saying it to the man himself.

There’s a quick movement between the front seats. Kyle just elbowed him, which - Stan enjoys, yes, but he’s not really clear on _why_ he did it.

“I... won’t,” he agrees, bemusedly.

It’s quiet for a few moments. The situation so intensely uncomfortable that Stan wishes he’d stayed in that wrecked fucking Benihana picking up shards of porcelain with Cartman for company. Kyle seems tense, Craig seems irritated, and Stan just wants to unbuckle his seat-belt, open up the door next to him and barrel roll his way out of this horrible situation.

Then Craig says, flatly, “You _cannot_ be this oblivious about your own life.”

Stan tenses.

“Craig,” Kyle says in his best ‘don’t fuck with me’ tone, “Shut up.”

“You’re an enabler. You enable him to be ridiculous.”

At this, Stan’s blood boils a bit. He scowls. “Dude, what the hell’s your problem?”

Craig turns to look at him in the back seat, his eyebrow cocked and mouth thin.

“My problem?” he repeats at the same time Kyle warns, “Craig, _don't_.”

“No,” Stan says, straightening. They’re getting close to home, and Stan knows he’ll go to bed hungry and with no appetite, and the adrenaline from this will be so bad he won’t get any goddamn sleep, either. “No, Kyle, I want to know.”

Craig laughs derisively. In the front seat, Kyle is visibly furious. “That’s my problem. You don’t know, Stan. You don’t know jack shit, and you’re not the one who suffers the consequences of it.”

“What are you _ta_ -”

The car abruptly veers off to the the side with a terrifying skidding sound and then comes to a sharp stop. In the front seat, Kyle is squeezing the steering wheel, fuming.

“Both of you shut the _fuck_ up.”

He exhales, slowly, then eyes them both in the mirror. Craig has gone back to full blown apathy and Stan is trying to pretend to himself that his hands aren’t shaking.

“I thought I was going to get an Eric Cartman free dinner tonight," he says, and his nostrils flare. Maybe Stan and Craig were wrong and Kyle's actually going to kill them both. “I thought you guys could have normal fucking _conversations_ together, I thought I’d have more to eat at Benihana than one measly tuna roll, but instead I’m hungry and wrong about everything and I want absolute goddamn silence in my car. So you will both do me a favour and shut the fuck up from now until we get home and you’ll be thankful I told you all this instead of driving us off a fucking cliff like I really want to.”

Craig says nothing. Stan says nothing.

"Yeah." Kyle starts the car up again. "That's what I thought."

-

Stan is pretty certain that after this, school is going to be awkward. He's not wrong.

Even the bus-ride there is terrible because he’s forced to sit with fucking Cartman, who’s in a foul mood and gives absolutely no reasoning for the stunt he pulled at the restaurant except, “I don’t need to justify myself to you, you Judasing fucking bailer.” Stan would give anything to be sat next to Kenny instead, but he’s up front with Kyle, no doubt hearing all about the complete shitnado that was his three month anniversary dinner with Craig.

The thing is, obviously he’s going to forgive Stan - he always forgives Stan, like Stan always forgives him. It still sucks that Saturday happened, but it’s a given. Craig is another story.

At least he has math with Kenny first period, which means he can grill him for information and try to gauge the extent of the damage.

“Dude,” Kenny greets him, “why the fuck did you go to Benihana with Cartman?”

Stan responds to this by dropping into the chair next to him and putting his face down against the table.

Kenny pokes his cheek with the rubber end of his pencil. “That’s our thing. That’s like Stark’s Pond for you and me. Not to mention, you know, that whole other mess of shit that came from it.”

Stan groans. The teacher comes in and talks at them for a while about stuff Stan doesn’t bother pretending to pay attention to, and when she assigns them questions to do out of the book he doesn’t even open his, just turns to Kenny and blurts out the question, “Are they breaking up?”

Unlike him, Kenny is actually doing the work because he’s fucked up and likes math. He keeps scribbling down numbers but raises his eyebrows slightly. “Dunno. Kinda none of my business.”

“What did Kyle say to you?”

“That Craig was out of line.” He picks up his calculator, taps out the problem and then after he’s written down the answer, absentmindedly spells out ‘BOOBIES’ and puts it back on the desk. “But he’s still pissed at you too. You know how Kyle is.”

Stan does, of course. He sighs and slouches in his chair, looking past Scott Malkinson’s head to make sure the teacher doesn’t see him. “Do you think they will?”

At this, Kenny looks up from his page and faces Stan. “Do you want me to think that?”

Sort of.

“No,” Stan says, because he thinks that’s probably what he should say to that. Then, more honestly: “I don’t know? I mean... Do you want them to?”

Kenny taps his pencil consideringly on his page for a moment, and then leans back in his chair with his arms folded and gives Stan that intense, unsettlingly omniscient look he does sometimes.

“There’s only one person in this whole town Kyle can really be with,” Kenny says. He presses his lips together briefly. “Think about that.”

Then he goes back to work and leaves Stan to do so.

That - it makes sense, sort of. Out of this whole town, what other guys are there for Kyle to date? Stan can’t imagine how hard that must be: only having a real chance with one person, for it to be impossible with anyone else but that _one_.

It sounds hard, he thinks.

He’s never really considered it before. Maybe it never worked out with Wendy, but a lot of other girls have been interested in him, and even though he never wanted to _date_ any of them, he did have the option. Kyle doesn’t have many options, and the one he does - it could break his heart if it was taken away, and that would break Stan’s in turn.

“Yeah,” Stan says. He picks up his pencil with an unsteady hand. Kyle deserves someone, even if Stan hates him and they make him a little miserable together. He swallows. “I get what you mean.”

He tries to take his mind off of things by actually trying to solve a few problems, but it’s difficult to focus properly and he keeps getting distracted halfway and ending up with wrong numbers. Beside him, Kenny has stopped writing. He gives Stan a sidelong look for a few moments and mutters, “I hope you do.”

-

Bebe’s having a party.

She stops them outside of class to invite them, but Stan’s relatively certain the invitation extends more towards Kenny than himself, just like Kenny’s dick extends towards her in answer.

“Come over early,” she says, which is _definitely_ not an invite intended for Stan. She smiles at Kenny with her head tilted, some of her curls bouncing against her cheek, and nudges him with her binder. “I have something for you to wear.”

He grins in a way that makes it look like his face is getting an erection. “Awesome. Thanks.”

After giving him another smile and Stan the censored version of it, she walks off again, and Kenny gives Stan a disturbingly self-satisfied look instead of outright saying that they’re fucking. Not that Stan is surprised by the news. There’s no way that, as a girl or a boy, Kenny would spend so much time hanging out with someone who has boobs as big as Bebe’s and not make a move on them.

“Stop looking so happy with yourself, dude,” Stan tells him. He makes a face. “It’s gross.”

Kenny puts an arm around his shoulders as they walk, still grinning as broadly as before. “No, listening to all the ways you and Wendy failed at sex was gross,” he corrects. Stan rolls his eyes but doesn’t dispute that. “Me being happy about the ways Bebe and I _succeed_ at sex? That’s beautiful, Stan.”

Grumbling irritably, Stan pushes him off. He has English, now, and a second-rate paper to turn in - not to mention a lot of hideous awkwardness with Kyle, who may or may not abandon the seat beside him today to discuss Tennessee Williams with Wendy instead and ignore his existence.

“So.” Kenny drums his fingers on his books. “What are you gonna say to Kyle?”

A lot of shit he doesn’t want to say at all, probably. Stan shrugs, fumbles with the strap of his bag. “That, you know.” He shrugs again. Overkill: when Kenny sees it, he feels oddly transparent, caught. “He can date Craig if he wants to, even if he’s a massive piece of shit or whatever.”

Kenny stops walking. He puts his hands over his face, which is really inadvisable in a crowded hallways between classes, and Stan stops to look at him in confusion.

“Jesus _Christ_ , Stan,” Kenny says, his voice muffled.

Stan blinks.

After a moment, Kenny sighs and drops his hands. He gives Stan a weary, fond smile, then reaches out and ruffles his hair. “I don’t really believe in telling people who they are. For pretty obvious reasons, I guess.” He starts walking again, tugging Stan along with him. “But if you don’t accept it within like, junior year, I’m gonna have to go ahead and say fuck my beliefs.”

Stan stops at his classroom door and raises an eyebrow at him. “... Okay?”

“That’s a verbal agreement, then,” Kenny says, shrugging, and then he pushes Stan inside and walks away.

-

Kyle isn’t sitting with Wendy. He’s at their usual table with Stan’s chair empty beside him, pretending to look at a book that has his phone inside of it - these are all good signs, all normal.

However, a few desks away, Wendy is looking at him like _he’s_ the one who physically attacked her date at Benihana, so it seems like he’ll have to try smoothing that other horrible mess out later today (which will probably be all the more terrible since he hasn’t properly spoken to her in a _while_ ). All he wanted out of the weekend was some progress on his Netflix queue and a beer with Kenny if he was lucky. Instead, he alienated his best friend and his girl best friend, and somehow allied himself with Cartman and his diabolical plans to shit on the lives of the innocent.

At some point this kind of thing should have stopped being remotely surprising.

He takes the seat next to Kyle and braces himself for every imaginable worst case scenario today could turn into reality, just in case. And he clears his throat a little, because he’s suddenly worried it’ll sound weak if he doesn’t.

“Hey, dude.”

When Kyle looks up from his phone, he doesn’t seem noticeably angry or anything, really: he’s wearing that expression he does when he’s trying his hardest not to look like he’s anything at all. Surprising, because it’s not like Kyle to repress - well, _anything_.

He puts his phone back into his coat pocket. Stan can tell looking at him that he’s got his teeth dug into the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, hey.”

It’s rarely awkward between them, but right now Stan is too aware of the fact Kyle’s bottling up whatever he’s thinking to say anything himself, and that it’s probably an angry rant about how Stan is fucking up his love life. He arranges his things on the desk for something to do and overhears Rebecca mentioning Bebe’s party to Wendy. He looks at his essay and remembers that he promised Kyle he’d try harder; and he didn’t, of course.

It’s good enough, he thinks, but it’s not the best he could do. In fact, he doesn’t remember the last time he tried his best at all.

“You hear about Bebe’s?” Kyle asks. His tone is casual. He doesn’t look at Stan, just writes the date in his notebook and meticulously goes over the numbers again and again when he’s finished.

Stan watches the lines get darker until the thinks all the ink is going to burst through the page, and Kyle’s pen stops. “Yeah.” And then, just for the sake of saying anything at all, “I dunno how her parents are letting her have another one.”

Kyle snorts. If this weekend hadn’t gone so wrong, Stan would be drawing crude shapes on the pink inside of his palm right now, and Kyle would let him even though he’d have to scrub it off in the boy’s toilet before going home and having his mom see. He’d tell Kyle he played Tekken 2 and Kyle would berate him for doing it without him, and when he asked about dinner Kyle would say it went fine and never mention anything else about it to him afterwards for as long as they lived.

“Pretty sure her place is still going to smell like Butters’s vomit,” he jokes, and Stan laughs even though it doesn’t feel right in his mouth. Kyle still isn’t looking at him. He’s doodling something Stan can’t make out - maybe art isn’t Stan’s strong suit, either, but Kyle is probably the worst out of all four of them. It’s a little endearing that even being as smart as he is, he’s unable to draw a few lines together and make them resemble anything in the world as Stan knows it.

Then he shifts uncomfortably, dropping his pen altogether. His hands curl into themselves on the desk, and Stan watches in relative certainty that another terrible thing is about to happen and he cannot _let_ it.

“I don’t really know where things are with me and Craig right now,” Kyle says, quietly. Under the table, Stan squeezes his own legs in a grip so tight that it hurts. He can see it when Kyle swallows, he can hear it, even. “But you - you can say no, obviously, of course you can - but I still -”

“You don’t have to ask me,” Stan says, almost frantically.

At this, Kyle’s head immediately turns to face him. His eyes are pale and scared, mouth still parted around the words Stan cut away.

“You don’t need my permission to - just, go with him if that’s what you want to do.” Stan doesn’t want him to want that, but he can’t fuck this up: maybe school, maybe college, maybe things with Wendy or things with Craig or Cartman or whoever the fuck, but not Kyle. He smiles and it feels like a cut he’s marking across his own face. “I want you to be happy, dude. That’s all.”

It’s not all. There’s more, but it looks petty and selfish even from the distance Stan looks at it from in his head.

Kyle stares at him. His bottom lip disappears into his mouth, and then he turns away again, hastily, and Stan can’t _believe_ that in all that trying not to mess up it seems like he still, _still_ managed to do it anyway. Fuck. He looks away too, down at his blank page, and catches Wendy looking at him in the corner of his eye from across the room.

“Yeah,” Kyle says, with the same forced calmness from before. He sighs so softly that Stan almost misses it. “Okay,” he says, then he pretends to read his book until the teacher shows up and - that’s that.

-

They don’t talk much for the rest of the week, which proves to be as fucking horrible as Stan could have guessed.

He hangs out with Kenny, Butters and Nichole in the art department at lunch while they paint. Kenny’s good at taking his mind off of things - he tries to teach Stan how to use oil pastels and makes him do portraits of the three of them that turn out accidentally terrifying. Butters is worried about him and makes him an admittedly nice but still incredibly lame card with fancy gold writing that says _Chin up!_ and has a little drawing of Stan’s face on it, smiling. He likes it and dislikes it at the same time, a conflict of emotions he’s used to as far as Butters is concerned. Nichole lets him draw blobby monsters on the hand she isn’t using and draws flowers on his whenever she gets bored.

That part’s okay, he guesses, but the classes he has with Kyle that were the ones he looked forward to most of all a week ago are now the ones he dreads the most, and the strained smalltalk is kind of killing him because that’s not how they _are_ with each other. It’s not how they should ever be. Kyle doesn’t even say anything in English when their essays are handed back and Stan’s has a C on it: just chews on the inside of his cheek for a moment and then puts his own away. He probably eats lunch with the guys, probably with Craig on one side and Cartman on the other, complaining that Stan and Kenny are fucking hippies or something.

Stan considers not even going to the party at Bebe’s at all because he feels seriously awful, but Kenny keeps insisting it’s better if he go, that he’ll just feel worse if he stays at home. Stan thinks it’s improbable that he could feel any worse than this, but then on Thursday, Wendy stops him at lunch on his way to the art classroom.

“Do you need a tutor?” she asks. Her face is hard, brows drawn, and Stan is kind of scared of her when she’s like this because it reminds him of his mom. He tries his best to ignore that, like he did back when they were dating and it was profoundly disturbing to him.

“Uh,” he says, which is probably the wrong answer.

“Do you need someone to talk to?” she presses. She backs him into a set of lockers and he doesn’t even realise until his back hits them with a jarring, metallic bang. “Did you forget that we’re _friends_ , or is dropping the people you care about just your new favourite thing to do?”

She jabs his chest with her finger when she says friends, and when she’s finished she just looks a little sad.

“Is this about what happened at Benihana?” he asks uncertainly.

She manages to look even less impressed by this and sighs at him, irritated. “No, Stan, because I don’t even think you _know_ what happened at Benihana.”

Fair point. All he’s really sure of is that that night sucked major ballsack and has possibly ruined his life forever.

“This is about _you_ ,” she tells him.

To Stan, this is the worst thing a conversation can be about anymore. His parents pulled him up on his report card again last night and now his mom isn’t talking to him, either, and his dad is complaining constantly about how he put her in a bad mood, and can’t Stan just pretend like he’s trying for his sake? He still feels guilty every day for being so unable to focus, so annoyed with the whole idea of school and after that, god fucking knows what: this whole fucking year just feels like the beginning of his end. He hates that he looked into Kyle’s eyes and promised him more then gave him less. He hates that he’s just _like_ this, now, and he doesn’t know if he can fix it anymore.

“I can’t listen to this again,” Stan says. His hands have come up to cover his face, he realises, and his eyes are squeezed shut beneath them. He pushes his hands unsteadily back into his hair and feels breathless and shaky and so stuck in this circle of shittiness he’s confined his whole fucking life too. In front of him, Wendy just looks worried and - scared.

“I know I should be better,” he tells her. His voice quakes. She puts a hand on his shoulder as if to steady him but it does no good. “I know that. The _worst_ part about everything being so hard right now is that I know - I _know_ it only gets harder, and all I do is make it worse for myself by being the stunted idiot I am. So whatever you’re gonna say, _please_ , don’t, because I already know.”

She looks at him for a while. Her hand squeezes around his shoulder and she gives him that same sympathetic, sad look she did the last time she broke up with him.

He feels pathetic and so _stupid_ , but she just smiles up tentatively like he did something right and says, “Okay, Stan. Okay,” and Stan realises just how much he’s missed her lately in all this weirdness - level-headed Wendy who made him study timetables before exams, who talked him down from panic attacks after they had sort-of-sex.

It takes a while for his breathing to even back out again, but she just stands with him and waits, and when he’s calm enough she takes his hands in her own and leads him down the hallway, into the classroom the school newspaper team meet in. The windows are big inside, two of them almost taking up an entire wall to themselves, and there’s enough space on the windowsills for them to sit together on one.

For a few moments, she doesn’t say anything. Stan looks out at the snow, a few of the younger kids running around in it, and feels struck by a sudden panic at how little he looks like them anymore.

“Are you going to Bebe’s party?” he asks, even though he doesn’t want to, even though he knows what he’s about to ask her next and he doesn’t really want to say that, either.

She gives him a smile that’s part fond and part exasperated. “Of course I am. _Alone_ , though.”

Stan shouldn’t feel relieved. The problem with he and Wendy is that it for so many reasons it _should_ work but it never does. Last time they broke up she said it was because he needed more time to figure things out, and it’s been almost a year; but past-Stan would have needed to be even more of an absolute catastrophe of a person than present-Stan is for that to happen, and that’s incredibly unlikely.

“You can dig yourself into really bad places,” she says, lowly. He hates that it’s true and that it’s happening again. She smooths the creases out of her skirt with her hands. “I’m just going to say it, because I didn’t think I had to before but now it seems like I was wrong: we aren’t going to get back together. Period.”

It doesn’t hurt like he would have expected it to - it _should_ hurt, he’s spent collective years trying to make sure she’s never say something like that to him and he cried in middle-school while he was picking her up for a dance just because she looked so pretty. It takes him by surprise that _she_ looks so hurt by it and it makes him sad, definitely, but it’s not a revelation and it’s not agony to know.

She reaches out and hesitantly puts her hand over his. “Things change, Stan, and - sometimes I wish we were still kids playing in your yard and we never really thought we’d be grown ups,” she says, and Stan has to stare at their hands and try to be okay while she talks, his ears ringing. “I’m scared, too, but... it’s a good thing.”

It’s not just _scared_ , Stan thinks, but when he squeezes around Wendy’s fingers she squeezes his back.

“I know Kyle talked to you about this. You’ll be okay, Stan, and it’s not just because people are behind you.” She smiles at him and bumps their foreheads together. “It’s because you can - find the person you really want to be with. You can get good grades and go anywhere.” She kisses him quickly on the cheek and he leans into it and takes a breath. “You can be good at growing up if you just... try letting it happen.”

He buries his face into her hair. She laughs, but he doesn’t do it to be funny. He tells her, in a muffled voice, “Thanks,” and she lets him sit that way for a while, holding his hands.

They eat their lunches together there, and Kenny and Cartman message him asking where he is, although Cartman is less polite about it. Wendy tells him to come to Bebe’s. She tells him to talk to Kyle, she tells him she’s been half-seeing someone who isn’t like Stan at all - that the last time they broke up it was because she cheated, and she shouldn’t have but she isn’t sorry and neither is he, really. She tells him he needs to seriously think about some things but doesn’t specify what. He tells her quietly that he fucking hates Craig and she gives him a weird look and says, “That, think about that.”

-

It's inevitably much shittier to walk to the party with Cartman instead of Kyle. Cartman bitches the whole time about high school girls and ‘crazy pussy’, a new phrase he's learned and has, of course, taken to drop into every possible sentence, and when he's not bitching about them he's fiddling with his too-tight shirt and bitching about that instead. Kyle would be passing him a joint, probably not planning to drink very much if at all, and he'd laugh when Stan called the neon green Converse on his huge feet the nicest pair of clown shoes he’d ever seen.

Obviously, Kyle isn’t with Stan tonight.

"Fucking liar saleswoman," Cartman hisses under his breath as Bebe's house comes into view. He tugs again at the collar of his shirt, which looks more expensive and semi-fashionable than anything Stan's ever seen him wear before, but that's also struggling to contain most of his body inside of it.

At her door, he huffs again, irritably, like this shirt is threatening to ruin his whole night. Stan would ask him what the fuck his deal was if he was even slightly interested in anything Cartman had to say tonight.

Instead he knocks, twitches his fingers around the handle of the plastic bag with his six-pack inside, and forces an awkward smile when Bebe answers, looking pink faced and pretty and only a little bit tipsy.

"Hey, guys!" she greets, and Stan kind of envies how girls can feign convincing enthusiasm like that. Bebe is smiling at them as she lets them in, asking them if they want anything to drink, but nobody is that happy to see their best-friend's ex-ex-ex-boyfriend and Eric fucking Cartman.

It's loud inside and pretty full. It smells smokey and overly perfumed and one look around tells Stan he actually does not want to be there at all. In fact, he can't think of something he'd rather be doing less than being here.

"The nerve of those two holediggers," Cartman says, sounding genuinely incredulous. He turns to look expectantly at Stan, as though he'll offer some supporting homophobia. "Can you believe that?"

Stan looks at Kyle for another second, who's smiling that content, unselfconscious way he only does after smoking enough pot, sitting up on Bebe's kitchen counter with Craig beside him murmuring something into his ear.

He looks away again. Says, distractedly, "Yeah," and sounds like he’s choking.

-

Stan feels like he's way too sober by the time the party's getting into full swing.

Telling this to Clyde is basically a coded request to have drink after inadvisably measured drink poured down his throat, but he thinks he kind of needs it, and he feels safe enough doing that shit with Butters around to pat his back after every poisonously alcoholic mouthful. Clyde's kind of dopey and cheerful drunk, but Butters just gets even more sickeningly sweet and lets Stan talk to him at length about why Stand By Me is the greatest movie of all time, nodding along and pretending not to know that Stan's favourite movie is actually Toy Story, or that he's only got such an achingly soft spot in his heart for Stand By Me because it was the first movie Kyle got on DVD, and they'd watched it together after elementary school a hundred or so times, Butters even coming along on a few.

He lets Stan act drunker than he really feels, that level of drunk where pouring your idiotic heart out to a trustworthy sort-of friend seems like the best cheap, quick-fix therapy there is. But Stan's still mostly sober and a little depressed, and the way Butters looks at him when he talks about this bullshit - like it’s meaningful, like he feels bad for Stan just listening to it - makes it all a little worse.

He goes quiet after a minute or two, then just leans on Butters’s side waiting for the the drinks kick in so he can feel miraculously better about everything. Wendy is up against the doorway and talking to Token and she smiles when Stan raises a drink to her in greeting; Cartman is on one of the couches looking like he’s about to murder something, most likely Kenny, who’s sitting by his side in a plunge neck purple dress, looking cheerful and freshly-laid; and _Kyle_ , Kyle is -

“Stan,” Butters says, in as serious a tone as he can speak in.

Stan looks at him. Maybe he is getting a little drunker, now, because his eyes can’t seem to focus very well on Butters’s face, and when they do it looks like Butters is frowning at him.

“I know we don’t talk much. I can’t say I know much about how you’re feelin’, or what’s going on between you two exactly, but if you ever need someone to listen - well, just know that I’m here for you, pal.”

Butters bumps him with his shoulder, smiling like they’re in on a secret together, and Stan must be hammered because none of what he just said makes any fucking sense to him. Apparently it shows on his face, too, because then Butters blinks at him, his forehead wrinkling.

“Oh, Stan,” he says, shaking his head.

Stan feels sort of bad, like he’s a disappointment for not keeping up with this conversation - like he’s a disappointment to _Butters_ , god, he must be wasted - but after another moment, Butters gives him that strange, sympathetic smile again and pats him on the back. He doesn’t really understand it, maybe, but he smiles back and feels very slightly better.

The hand on his back tentatively nudges him forward. “You should talk to him,” Butters advises, quietly.

The music is loud (and pretty awful) but Stan hears him perfectly clearly, and when he turns to look through the crowd of people, Kyle is sitting on the staircase in the hallway talking to Red. Craig is in the same room as he and Butters trying to push an enthusiastic Clyde off of his person.

“Yeah,” Stan agrees, downing the rest of his beer. He wipes his mouth on the back of his wrist, feeling a sudden fearlessness surge through him. He pats Butters on the shoulder and thinks about Wendy’s hands around his. “I will, dude.”

He walks into the hallway and over to the stairs without Craig seeming to notice where he’s headed. That doesn’t matter, anyway, because Kyle’s _his_ friend, and Stan can talk to his own best friend as long as he wants and whenever he wants, and fuck Craig Tucker, anyway.

When he reaches Kyle and Red, he clears his throat and gives her an awkward, polite smile before turning to Kyle.

“Hey, man. Can I, uh, talk to you?”

Looking at Kyle is strange tonight. His hair’s a mess of curls and his shirt is the same shade of green as his eyes, and Stan’s so drunk he’s forgetting to blink.

Kyle gives him a funny look. He finishes what’s left of his drink and gets up off the stairs, flashing a brief smile. “Sure, dude.”

Stan smiles back at him and feels brave.

-

This is bad, he thinks, or he would if he were sober enough to realise it. The lack of sobriety is the problem in the first place, really.

Kyle takes him outside for a walk around Bebe’s house. Kyle has to be a sensible drinker, of course, and even the few times he’s drank a lot he hasn’t enjoyed it. Stan would be disappointed about this if he didn’t know how funny Kyle is high: he goes between extremes, stoned, at peace one second and overwhelmed by the fabric of his hat the next. Kyle’s just the kind of person who puts his all into everything, even smoking weed.

Maybe Stan should feel bad about having to sling an arm around his shoulders and lean on him almost entirely for balance, but he has very little awareness right now beyond knowing that Kyle’s arm is surprisingly strong around his back. It’s kind of distracting, actually.

“You feel okay?” he asks Stan, a little quirk of a smile on his lips. His breath smells like candy apples, the flavour of the shot Kenny just successfully peer-pressured them both into taking in Bebe’s packed kitchen.

Waving a dismissive hand, Stan says, “ _Pfft_ , I feel great,” because right now he does.

He pulls Kyle closer against him, but there’s barely any distance left as it is, and the outcome is that they stumble over each other’s feet a little and Kyle laughs and calls him a dumbass in a bright, fond way that makes Stan warm, even in the cold midnight Colorado air.

“Let’s stop for a while,” he says on impulse, looking at Kyle’s face.

Kyle blinks at him. “Sure, dude.”

They stand in Bebe’s backyard, Stan keeping an arm around him for balance, although he's not sure if that excuse is out the window when they’re stationary. He takes a mouthful of the water Kyle had Butters get him, more to appease him than anything else, and then looks up at the sky, where clouds have creeped steadily across the moon.

He swallows, thickly, the hand he has on Kyle’s shoulder curling into his shirt arm a bit. The position is slightly awkward when Kyle’s that inch or so taller, but Stan kind of likes the way Kyle slouches over just to be a more accessible crutch for him.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and you might think this doesn’t mean much, with all the bad shit we’ve had to deal with,” he starts, lowly, “but you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

At his side, Kyle’s head swings around. For a moment he just looks at Stan, quietly, and then he follows his line of vision and stares up at the sky with him. Stan can feel him taking a deep breath under his arm.

“You too, Stan,” he agrees, but he sounds sad about it.

Stan wants to say more, or even - _do_ something, something to show Kyle how irreplaceable he is to him and to know, in turn, how irreplaceable he is to Kyle. He moves to face him, suddenly overly aware of the shape of Kyle’s narrow shoulders, the feel of the muscles in his arm shifting against his back, the infinitesimal details of his face: its sharp angles and eyes, the faded freckle by the curve of his jaw, the way his curls tumble down his forehead and between his brow.

When Kyle looks back, Stan sighs softly, contentedly at the sight of him, and breathes every detail in again.

“Dude,” he murmurs, because it sounded appropriate in his head.

Kyle’s mouth twitches and he stares at Stan the same way Stan does at him: like he wants to take him in in his entirety and he doesn’t know that Stan would let him if he asked.

"You're so _drunk_ ," Kyle whispers, unsteadily, a sore line appearing between his eyebrows and something in his eyes that Stan's never seen before - that cuts him sharply all the way through the chest and paralyses him momentarily. Then he turns his head down towards the snow by their feet, smiling sadly, bitterly, like he's laughing at himself. "I've - you were never drunk when I thought about this." His lips twist up into something agonised. "But you'd have to be. Of _course._ "

Kyle is looking at Stan like he just drunkenly fumbled with his organs and shattered each of them in his stupid hands, and now he has to stand here, split open from chest to stomach, bear all his broken insides to the cold air and try not to be mad about it. Kyle is looking at him in a way he never has before. "You're such a fuck up, Stan. You're my best friend and I love you so much, I don’t think you’ll ever know how much - but you’re a grade-A fuck up, and sometimes I swear to god I think you've ruined me forever."

Stan gasps, winded.

"What does that - what do you -” His breathing is almost frantic, and for some reason he feels genuinely scared. He stares at Kyle with wide, pale eyes. “Kyle, what are you saying?"

This time when Kyle looks back, he's sort of - fondly heartbroken. He puts a hand on the side of Stan's face and Stan shivers, leaning into the warmth of it, and he wants to apologise for anything Kyle asks him to, and to never see that expression cross his face again. He touches his lips to the soft skin of Kyle's palm and Kyle sighs, murmurs to himself, "What the hell do I with you?"

Then his face crumples again, and he looks betrayed; heartsick, like Stan just killed him with that kiss. "I'm saying you won't remember this tomorrow, and I guess I shouldn't, either. You would have said things to me you don't know when you're sober, and that means that wherever they are, you should - keep them there. It's okay, Stan," he adds, having noticed the devastated way Stan's looking at him. He even reassuringly rubs at his arm, but Stan still feels like something fundamental inside of him has been stolen away and left behind empty skin.

"Why am I a fuck up?" he asks, clutching at Kyle’s shirt. It sounds childish and stupid. All the alcohol in his blood has suddenly gone from making him feel brave to incredibly nauseated and foolish.

Kyle looks so sorry it must hurt. He looks so hurt, and Stan wishes he knew how to make it stop. "I - look, I didn't mean it. I'm a little drunk, too, and you know I'm an asshole when I drink. I'm sorry. You're not a fuck up, Stan, you’re - you...” He stops, his thumb stroking along Stan’s cheekbone. He exhales a shaky breath. “It's okay. Everything's okay."

Everything feels profoundly, horribly _not_ okay, though, and Stan makes this known by doubling over and promptly throwing up all over Bebe's backyard and his own shoes.

Kyle rubs his back until he's done. Afterwards, he starts crying without really knowing why, and saying a lot of things he isn't sure make sense or should be said at all, but Kyle just sits with him by the vomit and the foul smell of it all, patting his back the whole time and saying, "It's alright, you're drunk - we're both - it'll be _okay_ , Stan."

-

Stan remembers Kyle calling a cab and getting interrupted by Craig storming across the snow with a crushed plastic cup in his hand. They argued for so long that Butters ended up in the cab with him instead of Kyle. All he remembers of the drive home is Butters squeezing his knee and saying, worriedly, "It'll be alright, it will, you’ll see," while Stan lay out in the back seat and moaned like he was in agony.

-

Saturday morning.

Stan is hungover as almighty fuck, his mouth tastes like asshole, and he has a sinking feeling that he did something stupid last night. His eyes are red and blotchy in the mirror, so he must have cried - and he’s a crier sober, but drunk he basically takes on a liquid form. Maybe it wasn’t anything that bad.

Or maybe he accidentally did something that devastated Kyle and then softened the blow by blowing chunks all over it.

“Oh, god,” he says into his pillow. He tries, using only the power of his mind, to meld into his mattress and disappear entirely. It doesn’t work, of course, because everything is terrible. Kyle was right - he _is_ a fuck-up, and he’s ruined his best-friend’s relationship and his relationship with his best-friend and he’s trying to ruin his own life like some stupid _kid_ and why does everything have to be so hard? He wishes Wendy was holding his hands again, or Butters was patting his back, or Kenny was telling him all the things he knows about Stan that Stan doesn’t know about himself, or Kyle was here just sitting next to him, just - _being_ with him.

He reluctantly checks his phone knowing that he’ll eventually have to, anyway, and he may as well get it over with as soon as possible. Kenny has sent him four messages: _haha saw what u did to bebes yard FUCKIG NASTY DUDE_ ; _stan wtf happened_ ; _stan wtf_ ; _stan im coming over at 12 cus bro.. wtf???_

It’s only twenty past eleven, so he does have time to prepare for whatever further horror may ensue. That’s good.

Butters has sent him a grand total of fourteen texts since three in the morning to now that either ask how he’s feeling or contain YouTubes of cats doing things. Stan watches two of them and feels slightly less like everything is shit and texts back, belatedly, _im ok_ , to which he gets an immediate, _Okie-doke :o)_

Wendy has left him concerned messages on Facebook, as well as Jimmy, who if Stan remembers right, last saw him at around one in the morning when he peaked out of Bebe’s door just in time to see Stan crying and throwing up into the Stevens’ rose bed, said “Shit, Stan!” and then was ordered by Kyle to get back inside because how would _he_ have liked a goddamn audience in Stan’s situation? Clyde has also left him a message, although his is completely devoid of concern or readable English and was most _definitely_ sent while drunk; but considering the amount of exclamation points and ones it’s followed by, it’s still pretty heartfelt.

Kyle left him a voicemail at 2am.

Stan says, “Oh, _god_ ,” puts it on speakerphone, and then preemptively plants his face into his hands and listens to it.

“ _Stan?_ ” It’s almost inaudible. _“Did you - are you home now?”_ There’s a crackling sound, and then it’s much clearer when he begins to talk again. _“Look, dude, everything I said tonight was shit. Forget about it. Really. I’m sorry for being angry with you, okay? I feel like such an asshole for saying you - because you’re not. You’re like, my favourite person in the fucking world, and I - I love you, man. So forget it. I need you to forget it. Things can just be... how they were. It was never going to work with Craig._ ” There’s a pause, and then the shaky sound of Kyle breathing. “ _We can just be how we were. I don’t care. That’s fine with me, I don’t..._ ” He goes quiet for a while. “ _Please don’t still be crying, dude_ ,” he says, even though it sounds like he is. “ _It’ll be okay_.”

That’s it.

Stan says, “Oh.”

-

Half an hour later, Kenny’s at his door in skinny jeans and his mom’s secondhand blouse. He asks Stan to go to Stark’s Pond with him, and Stan says yes before his dad can intervene and make a big show out of how tolerant he is of who Kenny is and embarrass his son horribly, as always.

They walk there in relative silence, and the snow freezes Stan’s ass when he sits down by the water. It’s near the end of October now, and this is probably the last time they’ll come down here this year without the water being frozen over so he settles in and bears it.

Kenny scrubs a hand through his messy bangs and leans back. The top is nice on him - it’s flowy and white with little purple flowers on it, and even though it doesn’t go with his puffy orange parka Stan likes it.

"You want to talk about it?" Kenny asks him, softly.

Stan looks at him, and he looks back with those all-knowing eyes. It’s not as unnerving today. “About what?”

With a shrug, Kenny turns back to face the water. “Last night. School, or college or whatever. Kyle. General life things.”

It’s not just a feeling anymore - Stan _knows_ that everything he could tell him right now, Kenny would already know. Kenny’s been to heaven and hell, and one time he told Stan and Kyle that god himself had told him the meaning of life. He must see through Stan pretty easily, then.

"I’ve just been scared," Stan says.

Beside him, Kenny is quiet for a few moments. Then he puts a hand on Stan's shoulder and smiles at him, tells him, "Everyone's kinda scared right now. Shit, I’m kind of scared.”

He picks up a stone and skips it across the pond - it hits the water once and sinks. It's one of those little things that keep Kenny calm, although it used to make Stan feel oddly sick watching it.

His shoulder bumps Stan's, and he smiles in this funny, sad way. "But it’ll be okay, dude. Promise. Everything will work out okay."

Stan doesn’t know how Kenny of all people can be so sure of that: his family rents out their garage to the almost-homeless and even if Kenny had the grades for an acceptance letter to some good school, he couldn't accept it over his family. He wouldn't. He's actually pretty smart, is the thing. He's better than Stan at math, which isn't that hard, maybe, but last year he scored third-highest on the exam after Wendy and Token. Both of them had been getting tutored throughout the entire school year while Kenny prioritised his part time jobs - KFC employee and stand-in parent - over studying. It’s reassuring to hear him be so positive about it all.

“Do you know what you’re gonna do after school?” he asks, genuinely curious.

Kenny shrugs and inspects the mood ring on his finger his sister got him two years ago at a Four Seasons. It’s turned a little green, Stan thinks, maybe. Not that those things aren't total bullshit.

“I don’t know for sure. Nobody really knows for sure, but I guess - more than anythingI don’t want to leave my little sister.” He snorts and lies back on the snow, arms crossed between his head, and if it was anyone else Stan would be worried about a cold, or pneumonia. “I don’t want to leave my mom, as lame as that sounds. My family is - they could get by without me, probably, but they’re my life, and it’s always been that way. Staying here doesn’t sound great - Kyle almost had a fit when I told him because he couldn’t believe I’d be alright that - but... it doesn’t sound bad to me.”

Maybe Stan isn’t sure of exactly where he’ll end up, but he thinks it’d be good for him to get out of Colorado for a while at least. He doesn’t want to be here after graduation, anyway. Now the future has stopped distorting in front of him constantly things are finally clearing up. For so long he had this feeling of being submerged below cold water, colder than Stark's Pond in winter, drowning on mouthful after mouthful of sharp ice but never dying, never surfacing, never being saved or knowing how to save himself. All he could do was keep struggling for breath or anchor himself to the bottom of the ocean once and for all. He was scared of accepting lifelines in case they broke apart in his hands while he reached for them, but now he feels like he’s made it to land and relearned one breath after the other.

Kenny skips another stone and smiles when it stops skimming and sinks. “Most of you guys know this isn’t where you want to end up, but it’s _home_ , man. All I really want is to move my family into a bigger house and look after my sister and marry a chick with huge tits who doesn’t care that I’m...” He gestures to blouse and shrugs. “Whatever I am.”

“You’re a good dude and a good lady,” Stan says, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Kenny shrugs again, like he’s content not knowing exactly what he is, like he’s okay with things going the way they are - sometimes he asks them to refer to him solely as Princess and wears her old tiara, sometimes it’s a wig and a cheap hand-me-down skirt and just ‘her’. Sometimes he wears jeans and a shirt to parties and changes halfway into one of Bebe’s secondhand dresses

Not that it really matters that much, but Stan’s okay with it: Kenny, the boy, and Kenny, the princess. They’re one of his best friends. It’'ll suck to move away from him one day, and from her, from this frozen-ass fucking pond, from this terrible devil town. But he’s right - either way it’ll be okay.

-

When Stan gets to Kyle’s house, Craig is coming out of it, and he looks like he knows exactly what Stan’s about to do; although, as is the norm, he doesn’t look like he cares.

They stop in front of each other. It’s possible _they’ll_ never be okay again, because Stan doesn’t get Craig and isn’t sure they were ever okay outside of elementary school, which probably doesn’t count. He kicks at the snow and wishes he could handle uncomfortable situations with the complete indifference of Craig.

Craig just sighs, world-weary, and squints up at the sky.

“I don’t hate you,” he says, monotonously. “I don’t hate dogs for not knowing they shouldn’t shit all over the carpet, and I don’t hate you for not knowing how exactly you shit all over me. Because you’re stupid, and maybe I don’t _like_ you or believe you have value as a person, but Kyle said you have issues or something and that’s not really your fault, I guess.”

There are parts of that Stan has some disagreements but he figures he can deal as long as silence makes Craig go away faster. Besides, this is as close to okay as they’ll probably ever get, and Stan kind of hates hating people, he’s learned.

He gives Stan a look. “I’ll leave you guys to deal with this fucked up thing between you in a minute. I need to ask you something.”

“Shoot,” Stan says, and resigns himself to the idea that he might always hate him just a _little_.

“You know now, right,” Craig says, flatly. “About Wendy and Cartman. You must know. You can’t _not_ know, dude.”

Stan stares at him. For a moment his mind is blank, and then the only thought he can seem to process is that there is only one degree of separation keeping his dick away from Cartman’s.

“Jesus Christ,” Craig says, looking at him. He sighs again, breath coming out in a cloud of air, and then takes a few steps closer while Stan stares at the same spot and tries his best not to combust.

His eyes flick to the house, and then fix on Stan. “Kyle beat the living fuck out of Cartman that night for saying he was gonna tell you while you and Wendy were still dating.” He looks profoundly unimpressed by this. “ _That_ is how stupidly he’s in love with you. You guys are morons for each other. I like Kyle, but not enough to go through this horseshit all the time, so.” He shrugs, takes a hand out of his pocket and gives Stan the finger with it. “Mazel tov."

“Thanks,” Stan says, still staring at the same spot. He automatically returns the gesture.

Then Craig walks away, shoving into his side as he leaves. As far as Stan knows, that could either mean he still intensely dislikes him or he just initiated a friendship.

For a while Stan just stands there, three feet from Kyle’s door, staring at the road.

“... What are you doing?”

He turns. Kyle is peeking out of him, an eyebrow cocked. When Stan just starts staring at _him_ instead, he sighs and disappears into the house for a moment, and then he steps outside into the snow with his mom’s stupid slippers and a too-thin cardigan to protect him from the cold and walks up to Stan with his arms wrapped around himself.

The look he gives Stan is expectant, but Stan stares and stares and he could do it all day, maybe, really.

Kyle rolls his eyes, irritably. There’s a redness to his cheeks but Stan doesn’t think it’s just from the cold, and the colour deepens when he looks down at those two hideous purple slippers on his feet, scuffs one of them into the snow.

“What were you and Craig talking about?” he asks, soft-voiced, and then he looks back up at Stan again. He looks a little scared; but he shouldn’t, because he’s _Kyle_. Kyle should never have to be afraid of anything, least of all standing here with Stan.

“Wendy,” Stan answers, finding his voice again. Kyle’s hands tighten in the fabric of his cardigan. “And - Cartman. I didn’t...” He takes a deep breath and tries to keep his breaths calm, keep his voice steady. This isn’t how he wanted this conversation to start. “I didn’t know.”

At first, Kyle tries to keep his face blank and expressionless, and then he seems to decide on giving that up entirely and he looks absolutely heartbroken instead.

"I thought you did, on some level at least. Cartman wasn't subtle about it and Wendy...” He shakes his head and holds himself tighter. His voice softens. “There are a lot of things I just assumed you knew were going on, and things would have been - _different_ if I'd just said something about them, instead, I guess, but I... I was scared to."

Stan looks at him like that for a moment, he’s stood out here and freezing in the cold air just so he can let Stan hurt him again, and can’t _stand_ it anymore. Not for another fucking moment of their lives, he thinks, and he undoes the buttons of his coat and shrugs it off.

"I _know_ , Kyle,” he says, carefully putting it around Kyle’s shoulders.

Kyle’s eyes widen. He touches Stan’s coat with a tentative hand and looks at it with confusion, his mouth working around silent responses, and then he just looks helplessly at Stan and says, "You - you _what_?"

Stan exhales shakily, smiles, tries desperately not to cry. "I know that I'm in love with you.”

Slowly, he reaches out and takes Kyle’s cold hands into his own. Kyle breathes sharply and looks down at them, eyes still wide with disbelief, but Stan can’t takes his eyes off of his face.

He grins. His eyes are watering and it’s _unbearably_ lame, but he doesn’t seem to be able to stop it. “It took me forever to figure it out, but now I know, and I'm sorry it wasn’t sooner. I should have known.” He laughs a little, breathily, self-deprecatingly. “I did - I _did_ know, was the thing, but it was just this feeling that had been there so long I didn’t want it to change things. And I guess it didn’t for a while, but - I need things to change between us now.”

His hands squeeze around Kyle’s. He is full-on crying, and he’d have some embarrassment about that if Kyle wasn’t tearing up, too - but he doesn’t care that it’s so cold or that the middle of the street is such a public place to cry and profess your love to someone.

“Maybe it's too late, but I love you,” he says, and it feels so good to finally be able to _tell_ him. He slides one hand out of Kyle’s and raises it unsteadily to catch in his hair. “That word - it sums up everything I feel about you. When we're hanging out together, or I look at you from the other side of biology class, or when you send me stupid pictures at 3am I only laugh at because I know you would.” His voice won’t stop faltering but he can’t stop; he won’t. “It's that feeling I get even just when I think that you're this thing that really exists in my life, in the house right next to mine, and I can knock your door tomorrow morning and you'll be the one who answers - that's all I need from you. To know that you're real, and I can love you like this.”

“ _Stan_ ,” Kyle breathes, clutching his hand in both of his.

Stan shakes his head, smiling. He thumbs along Kyle’s temple. “I can't believe I didn't know, Kyle. I can't believe I made you feel the way with Wendy you make me feel with Craig, and even then, you still tried to save my relationship with her because you loved me this much, too.”

He hesitates, rubbing his eyes on the back of his hand and then pressing it back against the side of Kyle’s face. “It's - it’s _terrible_ and I hate myself for it, but if you spend your whole life happy with some other dude, even if it is Craig fucking Tucker, I'll love you so much I'll be able to love him just a little for making you feel like that. Because you've ruined me forever, Kyle.” His voice breaks over his name. He swallows and looks Kyle right in his two perfect eyes. “I swear you have."

For a moment Kyle just looks at him with his big shiny eyes, his mouth open to speak, and then he yanks Stan forward by his shirt and kisses him for a long, long time.

*

In the summer, Stan gets a letter telling him he won a statewide writing competition for a personal essay his teacher _insisted_ he submit at the beginning of the year.

It made his mom cry when she read it. His dad said he liked it without seeming to actually understand it very well; but one time Stan found a crease-worn copy in his bedside drawer, along with an abundance of weird shit he’s pretending not to know about for both their sakes. Wendy really liked it, too, and Kenny. Cartman said it was fucking gay but changed his mind after Wendy gave him a look and called it, “not totally gay at parts.” Even Craig told him once at lunch that it was readable after glancing at it over Jimmy’s shoulder.

Kyle liked it so much they ended up having sex almost directly after he’d finished reading the last word. He has a copy of it too, in his bookcase next to a Malcolm X autobiography and French dictionary. He even asked Butters to make a cover for: it’s clean and simple, the title _autostunted_ in white against the black centre of the page, the black fading out near the edges into vibrant splashes of colour. Stan really, _really_ loves that cover. He’s pretty proud of the essay, too.

They celebrate by spending some of the prize money on weed. (The other prize is a trip to CU in Denver for a writing workshop. Stan thinks it might be a little lame that he was as excited by that as he was by the money, but his parents are making a big thing out of it and it’s getting harder to act like he isn’t.)

Kenny snorts when he tries to give him the money for it at the front door.

“Dude, no way,” he insists, handing Stan the bag. He punches him playfully on the shoulder. “Have a congratulatory smoke on me, okay?”

Stan hates taking Kenny’s money but knows better than to argue with him on it. Plus, somehow Kenny always gets by alright: he even told Stan he’s thinking of going travelling with Bebe for a year after they graduate, maybe, and then coming back home to look after Karen, and even though Stan himself would never consider leaving town with only a few hundred dollars and a stuffed knapsack, he’s pretty sure Kenny could do it.

“Thanks, man,” Stan says, grinning.

Kenny tips the front of his cap at him. “No worries.” He smiles slyly, eyes flicking up to Stan’s bedroom window. “You guys better put it to good use.”

Then he ducks back to his dad’s pick-up, waving goodbye over his shoulder as he goes. Stan flips him off before he drives away, and Kenny honks and pretends to be doing something lewd to the dashboard.

In his room, Kyle is lying across his bed, messing around with his phone. It’s been warm lately and he’s wearing shorts and a Fall Out Boy T-shirt he found in Stan’s closet a few weeks ago that he laughed at for _ages_ because Stan had pretended to everybody for yearsthat he didn’t like emo music. The top is riding up his stomach because, skinny as he is, it’s still a little tighter on him than it was on thirteen year old Stan. His hipbones are peeking out over the waistband of his shorts and Stan wants to touch him like, _all_ the time. It’s becoming a real problem - although Kyle would probably beg to differ on that.

He sits up when Stan comes in and shuts the door behind him.

“Kenny paid,” he tells him, throwing the bag onto the bedsheets by Kyle’s legs.

Kyle smiles and lifts it. “I thought he might.”

He rolls the joints, not only because he’s better at it than Stan is, but because Stan likes watching him as he concentrates on it. He uses Stan’s chest to work on, legs straddling his waist and ass pressing distractingly against an easily distracted area while he carefully rolls up the paper, frowning at it.

Then he asks Stan to lick the edge, because he likes watching Stan do that.

“It’s embarrassing, dude,” Stan tells him. Kyle just rolls his eyes.

“I’ve seen you lick worse.”

Stan laughs and hits him.

He ends up conceding because Kyle admittedly does have a point. As embarrassing as it may be, it’s kind of hot how intently Kyle stares down at him while he drags the tip of his tongue along the paper. His hand fists slightly in the fabric of Stan’s shirt and then he angles his hips slightly lower and - has the beginnings of a pretty promising erection.

They listen to the new playlist Stan made (it’s basically the same playlist, but it’s been renamed from _bowlero_ to _bonero_ , which is now much more apt). Kyle kisses smoke into his mouth and softens from it, his hands rubbing soothingly back and forth across Stan’s shoulders and hips grinding slowly, just slightly, just because he knows it drives Stan the best kind of crazy that way.

It’s good when they do this: things slow down a little, and although Stan doesn’t want them to stop altogether anymore, it’s nice to savour lazy summer days with Kyle in his bedroom and not to have his mind wandering into the uncertainty of the next few years so much. Kyle’s a certainty, at least. His annoying but well-meaning parents are a certainty, his crappy sister is a certainty. The friends he has here - even when he leaves, if he leaves, they won’t just disappear entirely, not if he doesn’t want them to. Everything else he can figure out in his own time, and it’ll be okay.

Kyle gives him the last drag of the joint, stubbing out in the plant-pot on his bedside drawer afterwards, and then he let’s Stan breathe it back into him. He pets Stan’s cheeks with his knuckles while they kiss, and there’s something both hilariously funny and overwhelmingly endearing about it at once.

“It’s gonna be a good summer,” Kyle predicts with a breathy little laugh. He rocks their hips together slightly, teasingly, and nips at Stan’s upper lip with his smile.

Stan laughs and grins up at him. He reaches up and cups his hand around the one Kyle has against his cheek, says, agreeably, “I think so, too.” 

**Author's Note:**

> i had fun writing this so i hope you had fun reading it! or maybe you're just wondering, why would anyone write 25000 words of gay south park fanfiction where stupid non-things happen? well i am here to tell you yes i am wondering the same thing


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